Foreign capital,dependence, destabilisation and feasibility of transition to socialism

The paper analyses the argument that external capital inflow could create dependence and thus sabotage the possibility of a successful transition to socialism. The formal model deployed is of the Harrod-Domar variety and simulation run are undertaken for five underdeveloped countries, using savings functions estimated by Weisskopf. The conclusions lend some support to radical concerns about the adverse effects of foreign aid on recipient countries.     

Capturing judgments to clarify production strategy and policy

Recent years have brought a reawakening of the importance of shaping the operations function to support the broader strategy of each organization. Doing so, however, can be a complex, controversial, and highly subjective matter. Determining production's relationships to marketing, engineering, and finance requires executive-level judgments on the relative emphases among these policy areas. Other judgments about internal capabilities, external factors, and production policies are also involved. Assessing these relationships is a subjective process that is often subtle and usually hidden. For managers, these judgmental areas are sources of disagreement, confusion, and controversy in policy determination.Within this context, the authors applied a judgment-capturing process, called ProPol (Production Policy), to reveal and clarify managers' judgmental processes. The procedure uses correlational methods to identify where and how managers diverge from a common policy focus. The application settings were two executive development programs—one in manufacturing and the other in the public utility industry. Grouped into teams, the executives competed in week-long computer simulation games. ProPol was introduced to assist in clarifying their production policies and strategies.In the manufacturing setting, five general policy areas—marketing effort, cost efficiency of production, R&D effort, product pricing, and service flexibility—were identified as salient variables prior to the simulation. We sought to reveal managers' subjective views on the appropriate balance among these variables. The variables were scaled and embedded within questionnaires to present alternative strategy and policy postures within the context of the simulated organizations. From analyzing the resulting judgments, ProPol served the following purposes: (1) to reveal to each manager his own decision structure; (2) to permit intermanager comparisons of decision structures among team members; (3) to provide explicit bases for focused discussions on overall strategy agreement/disagreement within teams; and (4) to serve as the basis for determining a consensus strategy by each team. The managers' judgment processes were compared in terms of judgmental consistency, complexity, and espoused versus in-useimportances of the policy variables. Consistency, the amount of uniformity in the manager's decision structure, varied widely among team members and across teams. While some executives held firm, consistent views of policy-outcome relationships, others applied their structure inconsistently or shifted from one relationship structure to another in making their judgments. Judgmental complexity also varied widely within and across teams. The judgmental structures for most managers were simple linear relationships. Several, however, used more complex quadratic and interactive structures in relating the policy areas to overall effectiveness. Even when individuals were identically complex, however, they differed as to which policy variables were significant. Furthermore, although every manager espoused that all five variables were important, they were not all significantly used. The discovery of these discrepancies had a surprise affect: managers became aware of their personal inconsistencies and were stimulated toward understanding why they occurred. The group judgments, in contrast to the individuals, were more consistent and the espoused versus empirically-derived importances were more in agreement. This occurred from group interactions following individual feedback. The feedback clarified specific areas of policy agreement, provided a productive way for resolving basic policy differences, and facilitated the groups in clarifying their strategic directions.In the utility environment, executives participated in a decision-making simulation of a consumer-owned electric utility. As before, five key policy variables for this industry were chosen. Some of the five policy variables are indirectly related to operations (e.g., rate setting and employee relations), while others are more specifically related to operations (e.g., cost efficiency, dependability, and flexibility). Analyses of the judgments revealed characteristics similar to those in the manufacturing environment. Overall, however, utility executives displayed somewhat more complex judgment structures than did manufacturing executives. As a result, there seemed to be more common ground for intrateam policy agreement. For eight of the nine teams, the group consistency exceeded the average of their members' individual consistencies. Otherwise the various teams displayed diverse functional forms for their strategy and policy judgments, and they were relatively consistent in doing so.These results indicate that ProPol can help managers clarify specific directions for the production function. By doing so, a more focused production thrust, one that is clearly and explicitly articulated, will enhance any organization's competitive strategy and provide clear guidance for subsequent decisions.     

Black banks: A survey and analysis of the literature

The analysis of the role of black banks in black economic development began in the early 1970s. At that time the focus was on the profitability of these institutions. Since then both the number of black banks and the research on their performance have increased significantly. This article reviews the recent literature on black banks in order to provide a conceptual framework for policies that will promote their growth and prosperity. The authors conclude that there is a clear need for future research in every area relating to black banks.     

How global brands compete

It's time to rethink global branding. More than two decades ago, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt argued that corporations should grow by selling standardized products all over the world. But consumers in most countries had trouble relating to generic products, so executives instead strove for global scale on backstage activities such as production while customizing product features and selling techniques to local tastes. Such "glocal" strategies now rule marketing. Global branding has lost more luster recently because transnational companies have been under siege, with brands like Coca-Cola and Nike becoming lightning rods for antiglobalization protests. The instinctive reaction of most transnational companies has been to try to fly below the radar. But global brands can't escape notice. In fact, most transnational corporations don't realize that because of their power and pervasiveness, people view them differently than they do other firms. In a research project involving 3,300 consumers in 41 countries, the authors found that most people choose one global brand over another because of differences in the brands'global qualities. Ratherthan ignore the global characteristics of their brands, firms must learn to manage those characteristics. That's critical, because future growth for most companies will likely come from foreign markets. Consumers base preferences on three dimensions of global brands--quality (signaled by a company's global stature); the cultural myths that brands author; and firms' efforts to address social problems. The authors also found that it didn't matter to consumers whether the brands they bought were American--a remarkable finding considering that the study was conducted when anti-American sentiment in many nations was on the rise.     

The right mind-set for managing information technology

Too many managers in the West are intimidated by the task of managing technology. They tiptoe around it, supposing that it needs special tools, special strategies, and a special mind-set. Well, it doesn't, the authors say. Technology should be managed-controlled, even--like any other competitive weapon in a manager's arsenal. The authors came to this conclusion in a surprising way. Having set out to compare Western and Japanese IT-management practices, they were startled to discover that Japanese companies rarely experience the IT problems so common in the United States and Europe. In fact, their senior executives didn't even recognize the problems that the authors described. When they dug deeper into 20 leading companies that the Japanese themselves consider exemplary IT users, they found that the Japanese see IT as just one competitive lever among many. Its purpose, very simply, is to help the organization achieve its operational goals. The authors recognize that their message is counterintuitive, to say the least. In visits to Japan, Western executives have found anything but a model to copy. But a closer look reveals that the prevailing wisdom is wrong. The authors found five principles of IT management in Japan that, they believe, are not only powerful but also universal. M. Bensaou and Michael Earl contrast these principles against the practices commonly found in Western companies. While acknowledging that Japan has its own weaknesses with technology, particularly in white-collar office settings, they nevertheless urge senior managers in the West to consider the solid foundation on which Japanese IT management rests.     

Pricing Residential Amenities: The Value of a View

This study provides estimates of the value of the view amenity in single-family residential real estate markets. A focus on Bellingham, Washington, a city with a variety of views, including ocean, lake, and mountain, allows for differentiation of the view amenity by both type and quality. Results from a hedonic model estimated for several recent years suggest that depending on the particular view, willingness to pay for this amenity is quite high. The highest-quality ocean views are found to increase the market price of an otherwise comparable home by almost 60%; the lowest-quality ocean views are found to add about 8%. For ocean views of all quality levels, the value of a view is found to vary inversely with distance from the water.     

Performance evaluation of the LDR and the PSH with forecast errors

Despite its ability to produce optimal solutions, the Linear Decision Rule (LDR) has not had a significant impact in the business environment. The Production Switching Heuristic (PSH), which has shown promising results when compared with the LDR, has experienced some business application because of its practicability and flexibility. During aggregate production planning, forecast errors are almost unavoidable, but the sensitivity of these models to such errors has not been thoroughly tested. Insufficient attention has been paid to truly understand the cost effects of forecast errors and other important interactions. The study investigates these issues by analyzing the results of 740 simulated problems.Using the famous “paint factory” cost data, the sensitivity of the LDR and the PSH are examined under various experimental conditions. The factors controlled at different levels are: forecast error mean, forecast error standard deviation, demand pattern, demand variability, and cost coefficients. The results show that 1) the PSH is generally less sensitive than the LDR to forecast errors, 2) both forecast error mean and standard deviation effectively measure the severity of forecast errors, and 3) underforecasts cause less cost penalty than overforecasts.The outcome of the study has helpful managerial implications for aggregate planning related decisionmaking. It suggests that the use of the PSH could result in potential cost savings even if significant forecast errors are envisioned as long as the period-to-period demand variability is not substantially high. Also, BIAS warrants more attention than MSE in evaluating the extent of forecast errors and their eventual cost impact on aggregate production planning.     

Politics, the WTO and Trade Disputes: Evidence from US Cases

Do political variables play a significant role in trade disputes and does the World Trade Organization (WTO) ameliorate disputation? This paper uses US data to assess the role of the WTO and political variables in trade disputes. The data suggest that political factors are significant in the initiation of trade disputes and in their length of adjudication. The WTO disputes that require the formation of adjudication panels take fewer months to complete than under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade system, but overall the WTO appears not to play a significant role in reducing the number of disputes or shortening their duration.     

Lifestyle changes and the lifestyle selection process

This paper presents an analysis of barriers to the uptake of eco-friendly ways of life that is based upon an evolutionary complex systems approach to the workings of the mind and the choices that people make. It questions the effectiveness of price-based policies for promoting change and emphasizes the role of non-price factors and complementarities in choice. Inducing behaviour change may therefore require ensuring consumers’ lifestyle prerequisites are met. In the light of Hayek’s (1952) book The sensory order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), the paper examines the systematic processes by which cognitions are formed and minds evolve, and potential for inducing changes via policy measures that aim to derail stereotypical lines of thinking. Though the paper’s theoretical perspective differs from the behavioural economics that underpins the ‘Nudge’ approach to policy, the paper’s analysis is intended to be complementary with the ‘Nudge’ approach.