Fragmented networks and transnational entrepreneurship: Building strategies to prosper in challenging surroundings

Transnational entrepreneurship studies highlight the importance of personal profiles, institutions, and networks in creating and succeeding in this type of entrepreneurship. Even so, less is known about migrants whose networks are fragmented and closed, facing challenging environments at home and abroad. This paper aims to study the attributes of transnational entrepreneurs with small and fragmented networks, from post-conflict environments, who can perform an important role in the socioeconomic development and internationalization level of their countries of origin due to the cross border mobilization of resources they encourage. For that reason, the specific case of Colombian transnational entrepreneurs who have been able to overcome those obstacles with their transnational business is analyzed with the intention of understanding how they manage those shortcomings when engaging in transnational entrepreneurship. In aiming to obtain a deeper understanding of their characteristics, similitudes, differences, and motivations, the research uses multiple case studies. The main findings suggest that transnational entrepreneurs form purposeful–strategic networks to compensate their lack of amalgamated social systems, and that they have special qualities that distinguish them from other Colombian migrants and transnational entrepreneurs. Moreover, Colombian transnational entrepreneurs focus their business in the international market, using strategically their knowledge of both the local and foreign environment, while their main interest to do so is not altruistic but business oriented. Governments from post-conflict countries should promote transnational entrepreneurship while facilitating network formation and institutional trust through diverse strategies. Finally, implications for further research are drawn.     

The impact of supervisory adaptive selling and supervisory feedback on salesperson performance

The paper investigated the moderating effects of supervisory adaptive selling behaviors on the feedback-performance relationship in industrial salespersons. A conceptual model was developed and three research hypotheses were empirically examined. The data were collected via a survey of a national random sample of industrial salespersons in US. The results indicated that adaptive selling behaviors by sales managers moderated the effects of positive behavioral feedback on salesperson performance. Positive output feedback had a significantly positive effect on salesperson performance, whereas negative feedback (output and behavior) was unrelated to salesperson performance. Thus, sales managers can improve the productivity of their salespeople by demonstrating adaptive selling techniques while providing positive feedback to them. Managerial implications were discussed.     

Industrial and Spatial Spillovers and Productivity Growth: Evidence from Taiwan High-Technology Plant Level Data

The purpose of this paper is to recognize the importance of innovation networks and incorporate various types of knowledge and spatial spillovers and their associated adjustments on productivity growth. We explore the temporal, spatial, and industrial/sectoral spillovers using a dynamic external spillover model that assumes each firm derives an optimal plan such that the expected present value of current and future cost streams is minimized. The goal is to measure and evaluate various types of spillover mechanisms, which allow us both to quantify their cost effects and evaluate the contribution of such inter-dependencies on productive performance.JEL Classification: D2, L6, O3     

Reevaluation of the structure-conduct-performance paradigm in banking

In the banking industry, the structure-performance relationship has frequently been evaluated with results suggesting that collusive profits occur. These studies have been criticized for inappropriately accounting for entry barriers,ad hoc assumptions concerning the appropriate structure measure, limited samples, and ignoring firm efficiency differences. We address these concerns and find categorical support for the efficient structure hypothesis, and limited support for the traditional structure-collusion hypothesis when markets are characterized by significant entry barriers. The findings suggest the competing hypotheses may actually be complementary theories, and the negative role of entry barriers may be more important than previously thought. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago     

Using Subordinated Debt to Monitor Bank Holding Companies: Is it Feasible?

Although accurate bond prices are difficult to come by, many have advocated that bank supervisors use subordinated debt spreads in the surveillance of large banking organizations. Our findings indicate that subordinated debt spreads are most consistent across data sources for the most liquid bonds (i.e., those of relatively large issuance size, relatively young age, issued by relatively large firms) traded in a relatively robust overall bond market. We also find a high degree of concordance in rankings of firms by their minimum spreads across bonds with especially strong agreement about which large firms are in the tails of the spread distribution at each point in time. Our time-series results further support and provide additional guidance for the use of subordinated debt spreads in supervisory monitoring, support the need for careful judgment when interpreting such spreads, highlight difficulties with currently available data sources, and motivate the need for further research.     

The Brazilian national quality award: sharing some best practices of the winner in 1993

The Brazilian National Quality Award, a local version of the Malcolm Baldrige Award, was created as part of Brazil's efforts to step up the competitiveness of its industry. When it was first launched, in 1992, there was only one winner: IBM Brasil, Sumaré Plant. Nevertheless, its positive impact is being increasingly felt by companies in Brazil, mainly as a stimulus for implementing total quality. The finalists have an important role to play in this respect. This paper discusses some of the most relevant best-practices of the sole winner of the 1993 Brazilian Quality Award, Xerox Brazil. By the same token, it hopes to provide fresh insights about successfully managing total quality strategies in Brazil.     

TESTING PRICE TAKING IN LOAN AND DEPOSIT MARKETS BY FINANCIAL FIRMS

This paper tests for the failure of price taking in the markets for financial and nonfinancial services. A firm that can purchase or sell an unlimited quantity at the prevailing price is a price taker. This hypothesis is tested using historical data on a sample of eighteen banks, considering financial services, demand deposits, time deposits, labor, cash, materials, and capital. The empirical results indicate little flexibility in the financial technology, whether price taking is imposed on all markets or only on the labor market.     

Tracing the utility of injury surveillance data in Pretoria (South Africa) and Borås (Sweden)

Our research attempted to study the factors that influenced the use of injury data in two cities, representing different injury and socio-economic profiles. In Pretoria, the South African capital city, injury data uptake was constrained by, among other factors, the transitional institutional environment, stakeholders' suspicion of research and the absence of safety promotion champions. In the Swedish city of Bor?s, injury data uptake was facilitated by well-established research agency-municipality partnerships, injury prevention champions, a receptive political and knowledge driven environment and dedicated resources. The study signified the role of a range of content issues, contextual arrangements, social actors who may or may not operate from a perspective of sufficient consensus and institutional communication processes that may either facilitate or hinder the multiple employment and rapid movement of data along the 'ladder of knowledge utilisation'. Safety promotion researchers may need to expand their roles beyond data production to improve data utility.     

Agrarian Change and Labour Supply in Turkey, 1950–1980

Agrarian structures based on small peasant property can have two opposite kinds of impact on urban wages. In the first type, stable smallholder farming bringing high returns puts upward pressure on wages. In the second type, smallholder farming that does not bring sufficient returns leads to semi‐proletarianization in which workers' access to rural sources of income functions as wage subsidy and puts downward pressure on wages. This paper argues that the situation in Turkey between 1950 and 1980 fits the second type. By pointing out the factors that changed the attitude of the migrant labourers towards class struggle from relative passivity to increasing militancy, it suggests that instead of the rural ties of the emerging working class, the main reason behind the dramatic rise in urban wages in Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s was the working‐class struggle throughout the period.