The Essential Features of Technology and Technology Education: A Conceptual Framework for the Development of OBE (Outcomes Based Education) Related Programmes in Technology Education

It appears that programme development in technology education is emerging from an atheoretical perspective. This could be attributed to the absence/neglect of conceptual frameworks (philosophical underpinning) in the development of programmes in technology education. This article explores the role of the content dimension of the 'essential features' of technology and technology education in OBE (Outcomes Based Education) related programme development. An instructional programme was developed using criteria derived from the essential features of technology and technology education. In order to gauge learners' experience, in relation to these essential features, a qualitative case study involving 20 learners was undertaken at a College of Education. Engagement with theprogramme proved to be an empowering experience for the learners who had hitherto not had the opportunity to experience a formal programme in technology education. Although it could not be proved conclusively that cognitive development had occurred, positive inter-dependence,shared responsibility, social skills and enhanced learning were evident. The study has shown that criteria derived from the 'essential features' of technology and technology education could serve as a reliable yardstick to measure the extent of learning in relation to these essential features     

A dynamic approach to the analysis of strategic alliances

The increasing trend in strategic alliance formation between major firms around the world, has prompted researchers from various disciplines to look at this phenomenon in great detail. In this paper, we review alternate approaches in the literature in this area. We then propose a non-linear dynamic approach to study the formation of competitive strategic alliances and contrast it with the traditional game-theoretic approach. The pros and cons of these two approaches are discussed with reference to a competitive alliance scenario. Dynamic models have significant managerial implications as they enable us to investigate ‘if-then’ type scenarios and project the impact of different strategies.     

Cashlessness and scalable multi-pay practices: Capturing the everyday financial transactions in local contexts

While macro-level volume growth in India's move towards cashless payment systems is captured relentlessly, most often what gets ignored is a realization that everyday financial transactional practices are socially and culturally embedded in the local contexts. This paper drawn from an anthropological ethnography explores how people use and hierarchically order different payment systems in their everyday financial transactions for products and services. It explores how aspects such as trust, economic and social values, demographic differentials and scalable multi-pay practices influence such ordering and usage of the payment systems within their everyday local contexts.     

Financing Renewable Energy Projects in Major Emerging Market Economies: Evidence in the Perspective of Sustainable Economic Development

This research paper aims to explore the role of FDI inflows and stock market development on the promotion of renewable energy consumption. Furthermore, study investigates the effect of renewable energy consumption on CO₂ emissions and economic output across a panel of Brazil, China, India, and South Africa. Study utilizes annual data from 1990 to 2012 and employs various robust panel econometric techniques. The findings confirm that both FDI inflows and stock market development play an important role in promoting renewable energy consumption. The results also reveal that renewable energy consumption helps to mitigate the growth of CO₂ emissions and promotes economic development.     

Price competitiveness of tourism packages to Australia: Beyond the “Big Mac” index

One issue facing any country or region concerns its price competitiveness as a package tour destination. One method of measuring this is to use what in other contexts has been referred to as the Big Mac approach. The “Big Mac” is a simple product with ingredients in fixed proportions, whereas the tourism product is a very complex one comprising different components depending on tourist expenditure patterns. There is no equivalent tourism product offered across countries, as the nature of the product is tailored to the origin market, expenditure levels and the length of the trip involved. The key issue is that of how to standardize the products being compared, so as to determine their relative price competitiveness. A method of constructing price competitiveness indexes, developed by the authors, can be applied to develop measures of the price competitiveness of different tour packages. This paper has three aims: To set down the essence of the preferred approach to measuring price competitiveness, noting its advantages and limitations; to employ this approach to construct price competitiveness indexes for package tours to Australia from Japan and the USA; and to indicate areas for farther research into the price competitiveness of package tourism worldwide.     

Key problems facing industrial distributors

This article reports on a survey of the problems faced by industrial distributors. Five major problem categories are identified and managerial implications are derived from the findings.     

Marketing Concept Manifestations in Fiji Enterprises: Confirming the Link to Organizational Competitiveness

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes an integrative view of the marketing concept (i.e., the ability to understand and satisfy customers) and examines its prevalence and effect on competitiveness in organizations operating in an isolated and less economically developed country. The marketing concept manifests as marketing expertise, market orientation, and externally directed organizational values. Based on a sample of 86 firms operating in Fiji, the results indicate that these three mechanisms promote organizational competitiveness, thus supporting the universality of the marketing concept. These findings confirm the important role of the marketing concept in the competitiveness of firms in a less developed economy.     

Indonesian Manufacturing Sector Output and Productivity: An Australian Comparative Perspective, 1975–90

This paper provides industry-of-origin comparative estimates of real output and labour productivity in the Indonesian and Australian manufacturing sectors. It makes binary comparisons for the benchmark year 1987, and extrapolates the 1987 benchmark backward and forward using national time series, to derive comparisons for the years 1975–90. Expressed in ‘purchasing power parities’ (PPPs), the gross value of output and value added in Indonesian manufacturing in 1987 was 40% and 34% of the respective Australian levels. In 1987 the Indonesian manufacturing price level was 74% of the Australian level, and Indonesian manufacturing labour productivity was 16% of that in Australia. 1975 to 1990 was a period of catch-up. The Indonesian manufacturing price level declined from 105% to 60% of the Australian level, while labour productivity increased from 12% to 17% of the Australian level. The catch-up was greater from the early 1980s onwards.     

Purchasing Power Parities for Industry Comparisons Using Weighted Elteto–Koves–Szulc (EKS) Methods

This study has three main objectives. First, it develops a generalization of the commonly used EKS method to multilateral price comparisons. It is shown that the EKS system can be generalized so that weights can be attached to each of the link comparisons used in the EKS computations. These weights can account for differing levels of reliability of the underlying binary comparisons. Second, various reliability measures and corresponding weighting schemes are presented and their merits discussed. Finally, these new methods are applied to an international data set of manufacturing prices from the ICOP project. Although theoretically superior, it appears that the empirical impact of the weighted EKS method is generally small compared to the unweighted EKS. It is also found that this impact is larger when it is applied at lower levels of aggregation. Finally, the importance of using sector specific PPPs in assessing relative levels of manufacturing productivity is indicated.