An analysis of factors improving technology roadmap credibility: A communications theory assessment of roadmapping processes

In recent years, many industrial firms have been able to use roadmapping as an effective process methodology for projecting future technology and for coordinating technology planning and strategy. Firms potentially realize a number of benefits in deploying technology roadmapping (TRM) processes. Roadmaps provide information identifying which new technologies will meet firms' future product demands, allowing companies to leverage R&D investments through choosing appropriately out of a range of alternative technologies. Moreover, the roadmapping process serves an important communication tool helping to bring about consensus among roadmap developers, as well as between participants brought in during the development process, who may communicate their understanding of shared corporate goals through the roadmap. However, there are few conceptual accounts or case studies have made the argument that roadmapping processes may be used effectively as communication tools. This paper, therefore, seeks to elaborate a theoretical foundation for identifying the factors that must be considered in setting up a roadmap and for analyzing the effect of these factors on technology roadmap credibility as perceived by its users. Based on the survey results of 120 different R&D units, this empirical study found that firms need to explore further how they can enable frequent interactions between the TRM development team and TRM participants. A high level of interaction will improve the credibility of a TRM, with communication channels selected by the organization also positively affecting TRM credibility.     

Non-market valuation of forest goods and services: Good practice guidelines

The European COST Action E45 on European Forest Externalities (EUROFOREX) participants developed a set of good practice guidelines for the non-market valuation of forests, elaborating on stated and revealed preference methodologies, as well as benefit transfer and meta-analytical procedures. This article presents a summary of the guidelines.     

The international wealth channel: a global error-correcting analysis

This article investigates empirically whether shocks to asset prices transmit into the trade balance through consumption and investment for a group of five of the world??s most industrialized countries. We refer to this transmission channel as the international wealth channel and estimate a GVAR model including 29 countries with quarterly data over the period 1981Q1?C2006Q4. Generalized impulse response functions show that after a negative stock price shock US and UK consumption decreases, followed by an improving trade balance. This pattern is also visible for France, but not for Germany and Japan. Stock price decreases are only associated with decreasing investment and an improving trade balance in the UK. For housing, we do find that a negative shock to UK housing prices decreases domestic investment and improves the trade balance. However, this pattern is not visible in the other countries. Finally, a domestic negative real exchange rate shock only has a significantly positive impact on the US trade balance.     

Strategic complexity and global expansion: An empirical study of newcomer Multinational Corporations from small economies

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the determinants of global expansion strategies of newcomer Multinational Corporations (MNCs) by focusing on Iceland, Israel and Ireland. We argue that newcomer MNCs from small open economies pursue complex global expansion strategies (CGES). We distinguish four different types of global expansion strategies, namely, horizontal, vertical, lateral integration, and risk diversification. Building upon the traditions of Caves and Dunning and applying a multinomial logistic approach, we model CGES as a function of firm and country specific factors. The empirical evidence suggests that newcomer MNCs move away from simplistic dualities in the formulation of their strategic choices towards more complex options as a means of maintaining and enhancing their global competitiveness.     

Employee involvement climate and organizational effectiveness

This study empirically examines the relationship between the perceived employee involvement (EI) climate and organizational effectiveness. Using a sample of insurance companies, results indicate that organizations with high levels of perceived EI climate lead to organizational effectiveness as measured through financial performance, turnover rate, and workforce morale. Implications of the results for research and practice are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cash management using multi-stage stochastic programming

We consider a cash management problem where a company with a given financial endowment and given future cash flows minimizes the Conditional Value at Risk of final wealth using a lower bound for the expected terminal wealth. We formulate the optimization problem as a multi-stage stochastic linear program (SLP). The company can choose between a riskless asset (cash), several default- and option-free bonds, and an equity investment, and rebalances the portfolio at every stage. The uncertainty faced by the company is reflected in the development of interest rates and equity returns. Our model has two new features compared to the existing literature, which uses no-arbitrage interest rate models for the scenario generation. First, we explicitly estimate a function for the market price of risk and change the underlying probability measure. Second, we simulate scenarios for equity returns with moment-matching by an extension of the interest rate scenario tree.     

A framework to measure integrated risk

A framework underlying various models that measure the credit risk of a portfolio is extended in this paper to allow the integration of credit risk with a range of market risks using Monte Carlo simulation. A structural model is proposed that allows interest rates to be stochastic and provides closed-form expressions for the market value of a firm's equity and its probability of default. This model is embedded within the integrated framework and the general approach illustrated by measuring the risk of a foreign exchange forward when there is a significant probability of default by the counterparty. For this example moving from a market risk calculation to an integrated risk calculation reduces the expected future value of the instrument by an amount that could not be calculated using the common pre-settlement exposure technique for estimating the credit risk of a derivative.