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…     

Flexible Wage Contracts,Temporary Jobs,and Firm Performance: Evidence From Italian Firms

This study focuses on the effects of decentralized wage schemes and temporary forms of employment on firm performance. The effect of monetary incentives on workers' effort and firm performance is a central topic in economics. According to the principal‐agent paradigm, firms (the principal) have to link employees' remuneration schemes to any verifiable indicator of performance to avoid opportunistic behavior. The empirical evidence shows that financial incentives have the potential to exert strong effects on indicators of firm performance, such as productivity and worker absenteeism, although the degree of effectiveness of such schemes varies significantly according to the institutional/economic context in which firms operate. From both a theoretical and empirical point of view, the prediction on the effects of temporary types of employment on effort and productivity is less neat. In light of these considerations, this study uses a sample of Italian firms to provide further empirical evidence on whether and to what extent performance‐related pay schemes and contract flexibility affect workers' effort (in terms of absenteeism) and, in turn, firm productivity. These effects are analyzed for different types of workers (white collar vs. blue collar), working in workplaces characterized by a different degree of uncertainty and risk and in firms operating in different economic and institutional settings. Our results show that wage flexibility has a significant effect on effort and then on firm's productivity and that white‐collar workers are more responsive to monetary incentives than blue‐collar workers. Moreover, the presence of a large share of temporary contracts, implying a lower dismissal probability for permanent workers and a deterioration of the working environment, appears to reduce workers' motivation and effort.     

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.     

Unpacking Firm Exit at the Firm and Industry Levels: The Adaptation and Selection of Firm Capabilities

Evolutionary theory of business activity studies how firms are selected out of environments in which they do not fit, but most existing work underemphasizes the distinction between acquisition and dissolution as selection processes. We address this gap with a multilevel analysis that investigates how managerial and functional organizational capabilities affect whether struggling firms exit by acquisition or dissolution. We demonstrate that managerial and functional capabilities have heterogeneous effects on selection processes, with managerial capabilities having particularly strong influence on acquisition exits by struggling firms. The work provides a bridge between adaptation and selection views on organizational change; exit by dissolution represents selection of both firms and capabilities, while exit by acquisition represents firm selection but capability adaptation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Organizing for technological collaborations: a managerial perspective

Researchers and practitioners have recently paid great attention to technological partnering. In this paper, the problem of choosing which organizational form the technological collaboration should take is carefully examined. The aim is to support the decision-maker who, once it has been decided that a certain technology is to be acquired externally, has to identify the most appropriate mode for such an acquisition. This is not an easy task and is critical to the success of the collaboration. A framework is suggested to assist the decision-maker, based upon the preliminary results of a qualitative empirical study. It is then applied to two case studies. The framework is articulated into three logical steps. First, the characteristics of different organizational forms of collaboration are analysed in terms of integration and formalization. Second, the company's requirements from a specific collaboration are defined in similar terms within the context of objective, content, partner typology. Third, the characteristics of the organizational form are matched with the company's specific requirements so as to identify the most appropriate organizational form for the collaboration.     

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…     

新世纪再论包装概念

关于包装的概念，业内人士可能认为不屑再提，普通消费者似乎也都心里明白。然而在实现中，对包装的实质概念仍有许多认识不清的问题，如有些企业的决策者和专业人员在新产品开发中，往往摆错了产品主体与包装的关系，使产品与包装本末倒置；有些专家和官员一谈到包装发展史，就把古代人民创造的日用器具中的容器搬出来一概都作为包装例证来讲，以我国仰韶文化时期汲水用的尖底罐和人面鱼纹彩陶盆，以至烧水煮食的三足鼎与商周时代的青铜器等日用器皿作为古代包装的典型；搞装潢的平面设计师说包装属于平面设计范畴，工业设计师说包装涵概在…     

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).     

Differentiating Major and Incremental New Product Development: The Effects of Functional and Numerical Workforce Flexibility*

This study seeks to explain the differential effects of workforce flexibility on incremental and major new product development (NPD). Drawing on the resource‐based theory of the firm, human resource management research, and innovation management literature, the authors distinguish two types of workforce flexibility, functional and numerical, and hypothesize differential effects on NPD outcomes. A large‐scale sample of 284 Dutch firms across various manufacturing goods and business services industries serves to test these hypotheses. The results suggest that functional flexibility positively influences incremental NPD only, internal numerical flexibility negatively influences incremental NPD only, and external numerical flexibility positively influences major NPD only. Thus, differences between major and incremental NPD are grounded in the human resource flexibility of the firm. This complements research that found that such differences lie in critical development activities, learning processes, and capabilities. It also complements product innovation research on flexibility in NPD processes and on flexibility in organizational structures and routines. It extends the resource‐based theory of the firm suggesting that human resource flexibility is part of the dynamic capabilities that allow firms to reconfigure existing competencies. The conclusions imply that managers of manufacturing and service firms may use training and education and create a functional flexible workforce that can progressively enhance incremental NPD outcomes. They may want to avoid paying overtime, because such internal numerical flexibility hampers incremental NPD, but use fixed‐term contracts to expand external numerical flexibility to enhance major NPD.     

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.