Capacity utilization and the shift coefficient in Soviet planning

Conclusion In the eighties greater emphasis has been placed on intensification of growth in the Soviet Union. Soviet planners are now confronted with the task of improving their knowledge of existing capacity and their means of control over both capacity utilization and expansion. Imperfect knowledge has become a major hindrance to a better allocation of resources. Information is limited and biased. The ministries tend to overestimate capacity utilization by excluding from the estimates of their equipment machines in storage or recently installed. The CSA's statistics are biased by inadequate statistical methods and by the reliance on physical indicators. They tend to overestimate actual capacity and consequently to underestimate capacity utilization.Amongst the available indicators on capacity utilization, planners focus more on the shift coefficient. All industry is presently under pressure to increase this coefficient. However in most engineering branches the equipment shift coefficient is estimated on the basis of enterprises' data on workers' attendances, which—however stable the capital labour ratio may be—cannot give evidence of idle equipment due to technical, organizational and other factors, which could be conventionally defined planning failures and that official censuses on capacity utilization show to be increasingly important. Thus the confidenence on information obtained through the estimated shift coefficient may lead to misplacing the emphasis on a human factor, e.g. on voluntarism. Labour shortages may not be a crucial factor for incomplete capacity utilization as long as most industry works on a two shift regime. But a higher shift regime, particularly in branches with prevalent female labour, may provoke increasing turnover and need for auxiliary repair and servicing personnel, which may jeopardize the policy of intensification. Coeteris paribus the utilization of the workers shift coefficient as a proxy for the equipment shift coefficient may have been justified as long as the capital labour elasticity of substitution was almost nil. However, increasing automation and computerization may aggravate the problem of obtaining correct information on shift and intra-shift capacity utilization. Intrashift capacity utilization may even decrease when the shift regime increases. If decisions on writing off capacity were taken on the basis of a falling workers' shift coefficient, enterprises could be induced to renounce advance technology, in favour of traditional equipment. This, in turn, could aggravate the problem of labour shortage.In default of a proper system of information, planners need to focus on the functioning and achievements of leading industry, which is more closely monitored. One may assume that this section of industry works with automated technology and is at the forefront of the process of adapting the industrial apparatus to present day technological requirements.University of Verona, Verona, Italy. The author is indebted to Philip Hanson, Judith Thornton and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The research was undertaken at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Washington. The support of both institutions is gratefully acknowledged.     

Web 2.0 service adoption and entrepreneurial orientation

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Web 2.0 service adoption and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). For this purpose, this article conducted multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using Web 2.0 service adoption groups (high and low adopters) as an independent variable and EO as dependent variable, measured with four variables: innovativeness, risk taking, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness. The results show that there are significant differences in EO, overall and for each dimension, between the two groups (high adopters/low adopters of Web 2.0). High adopters of Web 2.0 have a stronger EO in terms of all the four of the individual EO dimensions.     

The determinants of new firm formation in italian manufacturing

This paper focuses on entry of small firms in the manufacturing industries. It is argued that the exit option can be viewed as an insurance against risks of failure, increasing the likelihood of entry in an uncertain environment; the result is implicit in recent stochastic models of competition and entry decision under uncertainty. A regression model of industry birth rates in the Italian manufacturing industries provides empirical evidence on the impact of factors determining the decision to enter and the supply of new entrepreneurs. In our estimates, yearly entry rates are found to decrease with entry costs and barriers and to increase with market growth, expected growth of small firms, risks of failure and an index of spatial concentration of activities.     

Industry 4.0 and circular economy: An exploratory analysis of academic and practitioners' perspectives

The union between Industry 4.0 and the circular economy (CE) appears relatively recent. In this sense, new trading zones for sharing a common scenario among academics and practitioners are needed. The paper aims to investigate the link between Industry 4.0 and the CE by understanding how Industry 4.0 can foster the impact of the CE on companies. The study proposes a broader perspective that includes thematic and content analysis gathering data on professional documents based on business cases, newspaper articles, press releases and specialised blogs, as well as scientific papers. The joint academic-practitioners view highlights how Industry 4.0 has the potential to impact on the CE through countless actions: increasing waste disposal; promoting remanufacturing; enhancing the efficiency of critical resources such as water, energy, gas and CO₂; and improving business models and the mission of companies. However, barriers still exist in its adoption, stressing the need for holistic and integrated design and a proactive environment of collaboration among stakeholders. Results lead to practical as well as research implications.     

How Do European SME Owner–Managers Make Sense of ‘Stakeholder Management’?: Insights from a Cross-National Study

The vast majority of empirical research on stakeholder management has traditionally focused on multinational corporations. Only in recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to the stakeholder management concept in relation to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The few existing studies in this area, however, discuss SMEs as a context free category or remain focused on single country analysis. This cross-national empirical research investigates SME owner?Cmanagers?? perceptions of stakeholder management in six European countries. The comparative analysis is followed by a discussion of how institutional, cultural and linguistic contexts can influence owner?Cmanagers?? sensemaking of stakeholder management. Our study questions the universality of specific management terms and proposes that more attention should be paid to the institutional, cultural and linguistic environments that shape economic activity in different parts of Europe.     

The All-Russian National Front – for Russia: a new actor in the political and economic landscape

The All-Russian National Front (ARNF), created by Vladimir Putin in 2011, has rapidly increased its power and influence in policy-making. The Front has been used to monitor regional policies and to check both the effectiveness and loyalty of regional governors in carrying out central government policies. This article examines the main activities of the Front and its membership since its creation, and considers the implications for future economic development in Russia.     

The impact of cultural differences on technology adoption

This study examines the impact of Type I and Type II cultural differences on mobile phone adoption patterns. We use Hofstede's cultural dimensions to examine cultural differences of two countries (Type I: the U.S.; Type II: S. Korea) and employ the Bass diffusion model to delineate innovation and imitation effects on mobile phone adoption. The results show that in Type I culture innovation factor has a significantly higher level of effect on adoption than it does in Type II culture; and in Type II culture imitation factor has a higher degree of effect on adoption than it does in Type I culture. These findings imply that in individualistic cultures, people tend to seek information on their own from direct and formal sources, whereas in collectivistic cultures, people rely more on subjective evaluation of an innovation, conveyed from other-like-minded individuals who already have adopted the innovation.     

Women Entrepreneurs and Family Firm Heterogeneity: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Family firms add to the economic and social well-being of countries. While research on heterogeneity of family firms is gaining momentum, it has mostly been gender-neutral. The study fills this gap by examining heterogeneity of family firms owned and managed by women, in the context of a developing country—Brazil. The study draws upon the resource-based view of the firm to investigate the relationships between firm performance, family involvement, and financial resources at the start-up phase. An inductive analysis reveals two patterns. First, family firms that are started with the family achieve better performance than firms that are launched without the family and later evolve into a family business. Second, family firms that are funded with women entrepreneur’s own savings achieve worse performance than family firms that are started with borrowed funds. The results are useful for strategic decision making in fostering family businesses headed by women and proactive public policies for future innovation to enhance the success of women entrepreneurs.