Technological change and industry structure: A case study of the petroleum industry

This paper is a case study of the impact of an exogenous improvement of a process technology on the structure of the petroleum industry. The paper examines the role of three-dimensional seismology in bringing about the 1990s oil industry consolidation. This proposition is examined in the context of evolutionary economics and in a non-cooperative game theory, concluding with a reference to Steindl's theory of industry dynamics. The significance of this contribution lies chiefly in highlighting the fact that exogenous technological change can, under appropriate conditions, play a significant role in industry dynamics. This reference to the exogenous change in technology is a departure from the traditional consideration of endogenity of industry structure in relation to technological development and, therefore, a novelty. Secondly, the documentation of 3D seismology as a significant process technology of the petroleum industry is significant.     

Co-evolutionary dynamics in strategic alliances: The influence of the industry lifecycle

This article examines the application of co-evolutionary theory to the way in which firms form, perform, compete and change within alliance relationships over the period of the industry life cycle. This extends the work of Volberda and Lewin who extensively critiqued the use of single-theme explanations for explaining the adaption and selection of firms. Delineating the aspects of change (adaptation) and selection, and using case material from different stages of the Industry life cycle, we propose that co-evolution is a better explanator of strategic alliance and industry dynamics at early and late stages of the cycle, whilst evolution and survival of the fittest is more useful in the middle stages.     

厦门电子业外商投资面面观

发展经济学理论认为,外国投资对发展中国家经济的发展具有扩展性的影响,它给发展中国家带来的不仅仅是资金,而且还包括管理技术、现代技术、充分就业和进入世界市场的能力。跨国公司的“一揽子”投资,是发展中国家经济快速发展的不可或缺的因素之一。本文试图以厦门特区电子产业外商投资为案例,对跨国公司“一揽子”投资的成效进行探讨。 一、厦门特区外商电子产业直接投资概况 自１９８０年厦门经济特区成立之后,特区政府即把引进外资作为推动其经济增长的主要动力。截至２０００年底,厦门市累计批准外商投资企业４９９１项,投资总…     

Industrial development in the inland region of China: A case study of the motorcycle industry

Although the inland region of China has generally been left behind in economic development compared with the coastal region, the motorcycle industry in Chongqing has recorded remarkable growth due to the meteoric rise of private enterprises over the last decade. Based on panel data of enterprises, we attempt to identify the factors behind the dynamic development of this industry. We conclude that the success of the motorcycle industry in Chongqing is attributable to a combination of positive features from the Wenzhou model in the 1990s, in which industrial development is based on clustering of private enterprises, and the Sunan model in the 1980s, in which industrial development is based on the effective use of human resources recruited from existing state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Learning by collective enterprises from SOEs in Chongqing coupled with the growth of the private enterprise sector fostered cluster-based industrial development. Journal of Comparative Economics 34 (4) (2006) 818–838.     

专业市场与产业集聚互动研究:来自浙江的案例

在规模报酬递增的行业,如果专业市场对该行业产品存在强需求,往往会导致同类企业在市场周边的集聚,同时集聚经济的形成使得企业能够为专业市场提供低价格的商品。与此同时,产品技术含量增加导致甄别商品质量的难度增加,由此造成的专业市场交易效率下降将降低对采购商和集聚区企业的吸引力,同时集聚区产业组织的变化促使领导型的企业绕开专业市场组织企业间的分工,并建立自身的产品营销体系。     

The selection of technology for late-starters: A case study of the energy-smart photovoltaic industry

Technology selection, which influences the competitive advantages of an enterprise or a country, is a multi-criteria decision issue. In addition, it is increasingly difficult to identify the right technologies because technologies are increasing in number and complexity. This study proposes a technology selection process integrating the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and Delphi method. The former effectively conducts the fuzziness existing in experts' responses and identifies the strength of technology selection criteria and the relationship between the two. The latter provides the main technology alternatives for Taiwan's future photovoltaic industry. Finally, through the two-way linkage between technology selection criteria and main industrial technologies, the technology fields of the photovoltaic industry can be identified. The empirical results indicate that the benefit of a technology is the most important factor among technological selection criteria, and that Taiwan should adopt and develop microcrystalline silicon film multi-junction and amorphous-silicon solar cells as its main industrial technologies. The results may serve to guide industrial technology acquisition and the work of resource allocations on the behalf of government and enterprises.     

Cultural legitimacy and framing struggles in innovation journeys: A cultural-performative perspective and a case study of Dutch nuclear energy (1945-1986)

This article contributes to the field of innovation studies by addressing the role of cultural legitimacy in technical innovation journeys. The article develops a new perspective that connects insights from discourse theory, interpretive approaches to culture, cultural sociology and social movement theory. In contrast to functionalist and structuralist approaches (which tend to conceptualize culture in a top-down deterministic manner), our cultural-performative perspective emphasizes agency, collective sensemaking and framing struggles. Cultural change is a contested process, in which various groups perform on public stages to influence the attitudes and opinions of relevant audiences who provide financial resources, protection or support relevant for innovation journeys. We demonstrate the usefulness of this perspective with a longitudinal case study of nuclear energy in the Netherlands (1945-1986), which encompasses both the creation of legitimacy in the 1950s and 1960s, and its contestation by an anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s, which halted the innovation journey.     

Roadmapping a disruptive technology: A case study: The emerging microsystems and top-down nanosystems industry

If technological roadmapping is important in the process of rapid technology commercialization, and if a method tailored to roadmapping nascent disruptive technologies does not exist, and if these very same disruptive technologies portend to be the future economic engines for firms, countries, and regions, then there is cause for concern. This article seeks to shed some light on the process in industrial disruptive technology roadmapping by focusing on the fundamental differences between sustaining and disruptive technologies. This article investigates the utility of theoretical and practitioner traditional technology roadmapping tools in an international industrial roadmapping effort focusing on microtechnology and top-down nanotechnology. I then modify the traditional technology roadmapping approaches generating a model for an industrial worldwide disruptive technology roadmapping process. I utilize the International Industrial Microsystems and Top-Down Nanosystems Roadmap (IIMTDNR) effort, which included nearly 400 people, from nearly as many firms, from over five continents and was developed over a 5-year period. The IIMTDNR process is used to provide the basis for a model for a commercial disruptive technology roadmapping process.     

The interactions between natural and physical capitals in the tourist lifecycle model

This paper presents a model of the interactions between natural resources and physical capital in the evolution of a tourist destination. The projected trajectory of the number of tourists approaches the classical lifecycle pattern. The post-stagnation phase is analyzed within the model, obtaining different patterns which depend on the impacts of physical capital on both demand and environmental degradation. The magnitudes of these impacts are determined by the type of tourism. An empirical application to the case of the tourist industry in the Canary Islands (Spain) is presented, showing that the model can represent the general characteristics of the post-stagnation phase of a tourist destination.     

Finance and industry: the case of Greece

This article argues that the Greek banking system contributed to the emergence of a weak, uncompetitive, and ultimately highly inefficient industrial sector. This inefficiency is quantified with the help of translog cost-curve estimates for 68 firms in eight industries. The estimation shows that Greek firms operate at too small a scale, relative to their capacity, and do not exploit scale economies. It was the structure of the financial sector, as it operated within the specific political context, that led to processes that dampened competition and ultimately distorted the country's development. The financial sector's behaviour is conditioned by three structural facets: it is an oligopoly; it possesses an internal hierarchy which is fully vertical; and it is state-owned. That the financial process led to inefficiency is confirmed by examining the counterexample of efficient industrial configurations. In this case, efficient industries were able to deny the potentially harmful policies of the financial sector. In conclusion, the structure of the financial sector, and by extension the structure of the state itself, played an important role in the Greek economy.     

The globalisation of research in the pharmaceutical industry: A case of uneven development

The paper discusses different conceptualisations of the term globalisation of research. From this discussion five dimensions of globalisation of research are identified. Using three different type of data, the paper goes on to examine the extent, motivations and mechanism for the globalisation of research along these five dimensions among leading European and US pharmaceutical multinational companies (MNCs). The evidence for the period 1975-1998 shows that the general process of international expansion of research activities varied significantly between leading US and European MNCs. It is also clear that the development of the process of globalisation has proceeded unevenly along the five dimensions studied. The data also show the increasing concentration of both US and European research investment in the USA.     

The globalisation of research in the pharmaceutical industry: A case of uneven development

The paper discusses different conceptualisations of the term globalisation of research. From this discussion five dimensions of globalisation of research are identified. Using three different type of data, the paper goes on to examine the extent, motivations and mechanism for the globalisation of research along these five dimensions among leading European and US pharmaceutical multinational companies (MNCs). The evidence for the period 1975–1998 shows that the general process of international expansion of research activities varied significantly between leading US and European MNCs. It is also clear that the development of the process of globalisation has proceeded unevenly along the five dimensions studied. The data also show the increasing concentration of both US and European research investment in the USA.     

Correction to: Integrating the two-stage of non-radial DEA model and BCG methods to evaluate the performance with strategic trajectory: a case study of securities industry

Portuguese Economic Journal - The 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States brought many financial institutions to the brink of bankruptcy. Securities firms were not immune to such...     

A baseline model of industry evolution

The paper analyses some general dynamic properties of industries characterized by heterogeneous firms and continuing stochastic entry.After a brief critical assessment of some significant drawbacks of recent contributions to modeling of stochastic industrial dynamics, we propose a novel analytical apparatus able to derive some generic properties of the underlying competition process combining persistent technological heterogeneity, differential growth of individual firms and turnover. The basic model, we suggest, is indeed applicable with proper modifications to a large class of evolutionary processes, well beyond industrial dynamics.JEL Classification: L11, O30, C60Support to this research by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria; the Fujitsu Research Institute for Advanced Information (FRI), Japan; the Italian National Research Council (CNR), the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR, prot. 2002132413 003) and the Free University of Bozen Bolzano, Italy, is gratefully acknowledged. Comments by Andrea Bassanini, Francesca Chiaromonte, Steven Klepper, Uwe Cantner, Drew Fudenberg and the anonymous referees helped in shaping the paper to its present form. Mariele Berté provided the computer simulations of the model. The usual caveats apply.Correspondence to: G. Dosi     

纺织企业"走出去":因势利导合理推进

为贯彻落实国务院支持纺织企业"走出去",实现原产地多元化的指示精神,商务部、财政部组成联合调研小组,首先于2005年7月12-14日赴山东调研,随后又于10月21-30日赴柬埔寨、越南对中国纺织企业对外投资设厂进行了重点调研.     

Information in the hiring process: A case study

A variety of theoretical models have been concerned with the extent to which economic agents base their decisions on full information. This paper describes the stages of the hiring process for secretaries in a large conglomerate, the information sources used at each stage, and then estimates the relative importance of each source. Almost all applicants are interviewed when they apply and the interviewer's comments are a significant source of information. But in spite of the firm's use of complex information, it appears that the people hired are not likely to do well than those applicants not hired.     

Measuring environmental efficiency of industry: a case study of thermal power generation in India

Technical and environmental efficiency of some coal-fired thermal power plants in India is estimated using a methodology that accounts for firm’s efforts to increase the production of good output and reduce pollution with the given resources and technology. The methodology used is directional output distance function. Estimates of firm-specific shadow prices of pollutants (bad outputs), and elasticity of substitution between good and bad outputs are also obtained. The technical and environmental inefficiency of a representative firm is estimated as 0.06 implying that the thermal power generating industry in Andhra Pradesh state of India could increase production of electricity by 6/ while decreasing generation of pollution by 6%. This result shows that there are incentives or win–win opportunities for the firms to voluntarily comply with the environmental regulation. It is found that there is a significant variation in marginal cost of pollution abatement or shadow prices of bad outputs across the firms and an increasing marginal cost of pollution abatement with respect to pollution reduction by the firms. This result calls for the use of economic instruments like pollution taxes instead of command and control regulation used currently in India to reduce air pollution.

服务业利用外资:印度对中国的启示

"十一五"规划中,政府明确提出要大力发展金融、保险、物流、信息和法律服务等现代服务业,而发展服务业的手段之一是吸引更多有效的外资.在服务业利用外资方面,我国与印度相比存在一定差距:如比重偏小,结构不合理,服务业人才短缺等等.本文通过比较这些差异,提出了我国改善和提高服务业利用外资的建议.     

Entrepreneurship and bureaucratic control: the case of the Chinese automotive industry

Whether and how will the state treat different kinds of enterprises, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs, in the related industry differently? Does this concern give its industrial policy any special Chinese characteristics? This article looks at a particular aspect of the Chinese automotive industry policy, that is, regulating entries, which poses special problems for the government. It explores why the government still retains this method of control even after it has been shown to be ineffective, and how the government tries to reconcile it with the aim of promoting entrepreneurship. The government finds that it cannot do away with entrepreneurship brought by the unplanned entrants (SOEs or not) to keep the industry competitive. Moreover, with SOEs accounting for the major part of the auto industry, the government has to protect the SOEs and propel them to upgrade at the same time. The government is thus likely to continue regulating entries, while trying to find a balance between the needs of keeping entrepreneurship and managing SOEs.     

Productivity dispersion: A case study

This paper studies productivity dispersion in a retail chain. We find that productivity is highly dispersed between the branches. Furthermore, productivity rankings are quite persistent. Accounting for employee skills and human resource management decreases the productivity dispersion only slightly. The results suggest that productivity dispersion is “real”.