Trust and the Flexible Firm: International Comparisons

Japanese and German manufacturers are more successful than their counterparts in Britain and France in achieving organizational flexibility, which depends on labor-management trust and cooperation. This trust developed in Germany and Japan over the post-World War II decades through the institutionalization of a system of labor-management consultation. This paper examines the role of power and social norms to explain why trust-building systems of joint consultation take hold in one place and not in another.     

Labor Flexibility,Ownership and Firm Performance in China

Developed and developing countries alike areprivatizing or corporatizing state owned enterprises(SOEs), often citing the flexibility to hire and shedlabor as an advantage. However, there is littleempirical evidence on the extent to which thisimproves firm performance. This paper investigates thelinkage between labor flexibility, ownership and firmperformance using China as a case study. We find thatSOEs are much less able to adjust quickly to demandshocks than are other ownership forms and that thedegree of worker input into hiring and firingdecisions slows the ability of firms to adapt,negatively affecting firm performance.     

Flexibility Value as a Tool for Improving Decision-Making in Flexible Automation

To narrow the discrepancy between the benefits of investment in flexible automation of manufacturing systems promised by financial evaluation tools and the benefits realized in practice, we distinguish the potential flexibility of a system from its realizable flexibility. A classification is given of the realizable flexibility in automated manufacturing systems in mass, mid-variety and mid-volume, and multi-variety and small-volume production systems. A systematic procedure for quantifying the realizable flexibility in monetary terms and integrating this value into a Financial evaluation model is proposed and applied to a test case with significant results. Comparisons are also made with typical previous studies.     

British Manufacturing Organization and Workplace Industrial Relations: Some Attributes of the New Flexible Firm

The characteristics of the largest British manufacturing firms are analysed in order to argue that the form of organization adopted at corporate and plant level by such firms is distinctive. The first part of the paper looks at the characteristic kinds and types of productive activities that the largest British firms undertake. It is then suggested that there is a distinctive pattern of organization for production at plant level, described as the 'new flexible firm', the features of which are formally set out. The new flexible firm have some key features which help to make sense of an emerging pattern of workplace industrial relations in manufacturing. The way this new form of organization at plant level utilizes labour contradicts rather than supports the expectations of some analysts about the importance of human resource management.     

New venture departments: Organizing for innovation

A popular approach to managing new business development in a large corporate environment—the New Venture Department— is considered in this article. The author reports on a study of NVDs in 18 companies—discussing why they were, established, ways that they differed and how they evolved over time.     

An Options Approach to Valuing Expansion Flexibility in Flexible Manufacturing System Investments

Flexibility in manufacturing processes provides an ability to change or even reverse the decisions made in earlier periods. The traditional economic evaluation methods of investments in flexible manufacturing systems ignore the value of flexibility, which should be one of the key issues in the justification process. Options approach appears as a means of overcoming the limitations of conventional discounted cash flow methods. In this work, a methodology for valuing expansion flexibility of flexible manufacturing systems is presented. Expansion flexibility in a phased manufacturing investment can be valued by viewing an initial investment as being analogous to purchasing an option to exchange one risky asset for another risky asset within a time period from the initial investment. While keeping the option to expand is of value, a thorough analysis requires that the opportunity cost of delaying expansion be taken into account. In this paper, an analytic approximation methodology for valuing sequential American exchange options on dividend paying stocks is employed for valuing expansion flexibility. A comprehensive numerical example is presented to illustrate the approach, and sensitivity analyses are performed.     

Efficiency and Firm Ownership: Some New Evidence

The paper investigates the effect of state ownership on efficiency of firmsusing an econometric model that allows for the separation of technical from allocative efficiency in adynamic setting. The estimation results, based on a sample of international airlines, suggest that state ownershipis associated with lower technical and allocative efficiency. State ownership's effect on technical efficiencyis mainly a dynamic one – lowering the rate of cost decline, whereas its effect on allocativeefficiency is static – raising the level of costs. Thus lower technical, rather than allocative, efficiency isthe main reason for state-owned firms to be less efficient than their private counterparts.     

The Industry Component of Regional New Firm Formation Processes

We demonstrate that the link between geographic specific factors and the propensity for entrepreneurs to start new firms varies from industry to industry. Linking regional startup rates in Germany during the late 1980s to geographic-specific factors for disaggregated manufacturing industries, we find that the impact of geographic specific factors of startup activity varies substantially across industries. In addition, the evidence suggests that it is factors specific to each industry, such as capital intensity, that shape the link between geographic-specific factors and new-firm startup activity.     

新世纪中国标准化工作面临的新形势——在新世纪中国标准化工作论坛上的讲话(摘要)

今年 4月 ,党中央、国务院作出重要决定 ,改革我国质检体制 ,成立国家质检总局 ,同时成立国家认证认可监督管理委员会和国家标准化管理委员会。这充分表明 ,党中央、国务院对标准化工作寄予厚望。质检总局领导对标准化工作高度重视 ,对新形势下如何发展标准化工作提出了明确的要求。为此 ,我们必须进一步认清形势 ,统一思想 ,明确任务 ,努力把标准化工作提高到新的水平。今年是国家标准化管理委员会的起始年 ,做好开局工作十分重要。下面我讲三个问题。充分认识标准化工作面临的新形势从新世纪开始 ,我国将进入全面建设小康社会 ,加快推进社…     

The Small Firm in a Quantity Choosing Game: Some Experimental Evidence

We demonstrate with a grim trigger strategy that the small firm should be more willing to collude tacitly as its market share declines; large firms should be less willing to cooperate. The small firm is not a maverick. The intensity of rivalry between two firms with asymmetric market shares is studied in experimental markets. Treatments give duopolists (1) 50% shares, (2) a 60 or 40% share, and (3) an 80 or 20% share. Choices for the small firm in the latter treatments are not significantly larger than the collusive choice. Irrespective of relative size, firms in all three market environments exhibit collusive behavior.     

The Flexible Mortgage: Optimal Financing of a Consumer Durable

Given the recent flood of new mortgage innovations, it is natural to wonder what features a mortgage which is "optimal" from the consumer's point of view might possess. This paper investigates this issue, using optimal control theory to characterize the time profile of mortgage payments (as well as the value of the mortgage) that maximizes an intertemporal utility function. Among other things, the analysis shows that the optimal mortgage payment stream rises over time under reasonable assumptions, highlighting the non-optimality of the standard flat-payment mortgage.     

新世纪化妆品包装设计新主张

引言新世纪的女性摆脱了枷锁的束缚，跻身于改革的浪潮中，力争在社会上取得一席之地。各种职业女性凭着自己的真才实干，吃苦耐劳与男性并肩工作，充分展示了自身的价值和实力。但随着事业的不断发展，年龄的增长，广大女性终究不能摆脱衰老的袭击，女性们在工作事业的同时，开始注重生活的品味和内涵。怎样留往青春，使自身的魅力永存，是每个女性所迫切追求的。于是，她们把目光转向了市场上琳琅满目的化妆品。一时间，多种品牌、多种性能、多种形式的化妆品蜂涌而上，形成了一支庞大的队伍。而大多数的消费者，往往是通过包装设计的外表…     

Flexibility, Structuration, and Simultaneity in New Product Development

A large body of research has pointed out the need for a contingent approach in the design of new product development processes, highlighting the risk of simply accepting a normative perspective that leads to the identification and diffusion of decontextualized “best practices.” In the literature there are contrasting views regarding the identification of the characteristics of product innovation processes in extremely uncertain and dynamic conditions. Some studies propose a fascinating dichotomy: the contraposition between flexible processes and Stage‐Gate^® processes. They maintain that Stage‐Gate^® processes are characterized by “early and sharp” product definition and clear separation between concept development and implementation (detail design and production ramp‐up), whereas flexible development models seek to delay the concept freeze point and overlap product development stages going beyond concurrent engineering. Other studies have arrived at seemingly conflicting results; the suitability of the early and sharp product definition approach in turbulent environments is debated without supporting the dichotomy between flexible processes and Stage‐Gate^® processes. Moreover, additional reasons for questioning the contraposition between Stage‐Gate^® and flexible processes come from a series of studies on the management of discontinuous innovation. The aim of the present study was to develop a conceptual framework that can overcome this widely accepted but controversial dichotomy. The framework is based on the recognition of the orthogonality among three analytical dimensions: organizational, informational, and temporal. The organizational dimension refers to the structuration of the process. The informational dimension deals with classifying the development activities and investigating the firm's product definition approach (early and sharp mode vs. late freeze mode). The temporal dimension relates to the execution strategies of development tasks. The three‐dimensional framework enables us to better understand the complex relationships between the degree of structuration in process design (organizational dimension), the degree of intersection between problem‐formulation and problem‐solving in product definition (informational dimension), and different types of execution strategies (temporal dimension).     

The Immediate Impact of New Product Introductions on Stock Price: The Role of Firm Resources and Size*

New product development and introduction is an ongoing important issue to facilitate a firm's success. To demonstrate the financial impact of new product introductions and the supporting role of firm resources and organizational structure, the authors collected 409 new product announcements from 1990 to 1998 and used event methodology and regression models in this research. Building on resources and capabilities perspectives, the present study argues that firm resources with emphases on research and development (R&D) are imperative to materialize new product concepts. However, the research revealed that R&D resources have dual effects on immediate shareholder value (i.e., abnormal stock returns). On one hand, when the firm commits only lower to moderate levels of R&D, investors would have perceived such R&D as expenditures reducing the firm's profit margin and thereby negatively evaluate R&D resources. Nevertheless, when the firm has dedicated its resources to R&D significant enough to signal investors its potential benefits can outweigh its costs, it generates positive shareholder value. Further, the study found that investors honor positive marketing resources that are critical to promote and launch new products to customers. Apart from resources perspectives, according to the organizational structure literature, firm size reflects the layers of bureaucracy within an organization. The research found a negative effect on shareholder value, indicating that investors evaluate more optimistically smaller firms that are likely to be more innovative and entrepreneurial resulted in more breakthrough products. In conclusion, this study provides value to practitioners in understanding the impact of firm size and, more importantly, to what extent they dedicate their resources in R&D and marketing to generate different performance outcomes.     

How Involving More Functional Areas Within a Firm Affects the New Product Process

Effective new product development decisions are often based on information obtained from multiple functional areas in the organization, making effective communications an important part of successful development efforts. Linda Rochford and William Rudelius examine the effects on new product performance of obtaining information from multiple functional areas during the stages of the new product development process. In addition, they explore the effects of information sharing among functional areas on new product performance. Results suggest that a surprisingly large number of functional areas in the medical products firms in the study do not contribute or use information in many of the new product development stages. However, for several stages of the new product process, obtaining information from more functional areas and sharing information among more functional areas has a positive impact on new product performance.     

PVDC:软包装应用前景面面观

1一.全天候的高阻隔优势,近年在我国发展神速PVDC作为包装材料,在常用的聚合物中是唯一同时具有高度阻氧和高度阻湿的包装材料,不仅如此,它的柔韧性、低温热封性以及耐油渗、耐腐蚀性都是顶尖的,因此,称其为全天候高阻隔软包装材料实不为过。历来业界内专家都认可。由于它独具的优势,半个世纪以来,虽各种塑膜品种不断涌现,都未能动摇其独领风骚的地位,即如上世纪80年代出现的EVOH,阻氧甚高,又有其独特的环境效应,但其遇湿阻隔性明显下降,必须在保护其不受湿度冲击才能达到高度阻氧的效果,大大限制了其应用范围。又如双向拉伸的PET、PA…     

Creating Growth in New Markets: A Simultaneous Model of Firm Entry and Price*

Sales in a new market generally follow a hockey‐stick pattern: After commercialization, sales are very low for some time before there is a dramatic takeoff in growth. Reported sales takeoffs across products vary widely from a few years to several decades. Prior research identifies new firm entry or price declines as key factors that relate to the timing of a sales takeoff in new markets. However, this literature considers these variables to be exogenous and only finds unilateral effects. In the present article, new firm entry and price declines are modeled as being endogenous. Thus, the simultaneous relationship between price declines and firm entry in the introductory period of new markets when industry sales are negligible is studied. Using a sample of new markets formed in the United States during the last 135 years, strong support for a simultaneous model of price and firm entry is found: Price decreases relate to the competitive pressures associated with firm entry, and, in turn, firm entry is lower in new markets with rapidly falling prices. Furthermore, a key driver of firm entry during the early years of a new market involves the level of patent activity, and a key driver of price decreases is the presence of large firms. In contrast to the recommendations from other research, these results indicate that rapid price declines may further delay sales takeoff in industries by dampening new firm entry. Instead, rapid sales takeoffs in new markets come from encouraging greater innovative activity and the entry of large firms.