Manufacturing outsourcing,onshoring, and global equilibrium

Manufacturing is now a national strategy for many countries to combat slow economic growth, and positively viewed with the current trend of onshoring foreign manufacturing operations. We develop a cross-country regression model that predicts manufacturing employment as a function of population growth, foreign direct investment, and purchasing power parity. Results through the year 2100 suggest that manufacturing is trending toward a global equilibrium with higher levels of manufacturing outputs but much lower levels of manufacturing employment. The reason is that countries tend to evolve from having little manufacturing to commodity manufacturing at large scale and low wages. As infrastructure and human capital develop, there is the tendency to pursue advanced manufacturing in support of higher valued goods. The manufacture of commodity products is then outsourced to those countries with lower costs justified by their less-developed infrastructure and human capital, and so the virtuous cycle continues. While this model suggests that current efforts in revitalization of domestic manufacturing would lead to an increase in wealth in the United States, the bad news is that these gains are unlikely to be sustainable in the long term. However, the good news is that manufacturing acts as a rising tide that raises all nations and our global quality of life.     

Do young firms owned by recent immigrants outperform other young firms?

This study compares the performance of new businesses owned by recent immigrants with that of other new firms. It addresses an on-going unresolved discussion in the academic and professional literatures by drawing on a large sample of Canadian business owners whose firms began trading between 2000 and 2004 and using taxation data to track 2004 to 2008 performance. The results provide empirical evidence that young immigrant-owned exporter firms outperformed young domestically-founded firms whether or not they exported; however, immigrant-owned young enterprises that did not export underperformed other young firms. Owner-level factors such as gender, growth intentions and experience also influenced growth performance among young SMEs. The results provide evidence that suggests that immigrants have resources such as access to international networks that provide competitive advantage over non-immigrant owners that export or aspire to export. Not all immigrant business owners, however, are able to lever such advantages. The implications of the findings for research and policy are discussed.     

Regional integration in Asia and its effects on the EU and North America

Consequences of free-trade agreements (FTAs) among the ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+6 countries are explored using a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Quantitative assessments of intra- and extra-regional effects on welfare, trade and output are offered. When both trade facilitation and endogenously determined productivity are included in the FTA scenarios, Singapore, other ASEAN countries and China would be able to realize relatively large welfare gains, while the welfare effects on the EU and North America are negligible. The trade and output effects on the latter two regions are also relatively small, with the notable exception of crops, other than rice, in North America.     

What Can China Do About Health Products Industry?

"We now watch advertisement on health products,beauty and body care products everyday everywhere,which actually shows how big the industry is and will be," Yu Xiucheng,former deputy director of Science& Technology and Education Department of Ministry of Health (MOH) said.     

Stock Price Reaction to Non-financial News in European Technology Companies

Drawing upon a series of interviews conducted with leading practitioners and opinion formulators in the social, ethical and environmental audit arena, together with an extensive review of recent literature in the area, this paper offers a critical appraisal of current developments in the newly revitalized social audit movement. We particularly question whether in their enthusiasm for bringing social audit into the mainstream of current business thinking its advocates risk compromising the democratic ideals of the founding fathers of the movement. A particular concern raised is that without real change in corporate governance structures, social audit could become monopolized by consultants and/or corporate management and hence amount to little more than a skilfully controlled public relations exercise.     

Knowledge,beliefs and attitudes of squash venue operators relating to use of protective eyewear

Sports venues are in a position to potentially influence the safety practices of their patrons. This study examined the knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of venue operators that could influence the use of protective eyewear by squash players. A 50% random sample of all private and public squash venues affiliated with the Victorian Squash Federation in metropolitan Melbourne was selected. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 15 squash venue operators during August 2001. Interviews were transcribed and content and thematic analyses were performed. The content of the interviews covered five topics: (1) overall injury risk perception, (2) eye injury occurrence, (3) knowledge, behaviors, attitudes and beliefs associated with protective eyewear, (4) compulsory protective eyewear and (5) availability of protective eyewear at venues. Venue operators were mainly concerned with the severe nature of eye injuries, rather than the relatively low incidence of these injuries. Some venue operators believed that players should wear any eyewear, rather than none at all, and believed that more players should use protective eyewear. Generally, they did not believe that players with higher levels of experience and expertise needed to wear protective eyewear when playing. Only six venues had at least one type of eyewear available for players to hire or borrow or to purchase. Operators expressed a desire to be informed about correct protective eyewear. Appropriate protective eyewear is not readily available at squash venues. Better-informed venue operators may be more likely to provide suitable protective eyewear.     

When competency-based pay relates to creative performance: The moderating role of employee psychological need

Although competency advocates argue that competency-based pay (CBP) can facilitate the implementation of business strategies and improve organizational performance, few empirical studies on the effectiveness of CBP have been conducted in the workplace. This study examines employees’ perceptions of CBP and their creative performance, along with the moderating role of psychological needs in this relationship. A survey design with a sample of 219 Hong Kong Chinese employees from the hotel and service sectors was adopted. The results support that employee creativity is predicted by both CBP (reward for knowledge and reward for skill) and individual characteristics (need for achievement, need for power). In addition, need for power moderates the relationship between CBP (reward for knowledge and reward for skill) and employee creativity. The implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

An interactional perspective on perceived empowerment: the role of personal needs and task context

This study examines the influence of individual needs and task characteristics on a multifaceted definition of perceived empowerment using an interactional perspective. Respondents were Hong Kong Chinese employees and most of them lower-level or nonmanagerial level workers in business organizations. We used regression analyses to test a number of hypotheses informed by social psychology theories. The significant findings indicate that perceived empowerment is predicted by individual characteristics (need for achievement, need for power), task situations (receipt of task feedback, competency-based reward system, participation in goal setting) and their interactions. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed.     

On the performance of tests by Wu and by Hausman for detecting the ordinary least squares bias problem

We first consider the performance of the Wu (1973) - Hausman (1978) (W-H) specification error test as a test for the existence of ordinary least squares (OLS) bias. We discuss power properties of the test under alternative null hypotheses, one of which has not previously been considered. We next consider how the W-H test performs as an indicator of the extent (rather than the existence) of an OLS bias problem, since this usage of the test seems common in applied studies. Finally Monte Carlo methods are used to evaluate Wu's two-step estimation procedure involving the W-H test as a pretest.