From the Digital Internet to the Physical Internet: A Conceptual Framework With a Stylized Network Model

Despite the increasing academic interest and financial support for the Physical Internet (PI), surprisingly little is known about its operationalization and implementation. In this paper, we suggest studying the PI on the basis of the Digital Internet (DI), which is a well‐established entity. We propose a conceptual framework for the PI network using the DI as a starting point, and find that the PI network not only needs to solve the reachability problem, that is, how to route an item from A to B, but also must confront a more complicated optimality problem, that is, how to dynamically optimize a set of additional logistics‐related metrics such as cost, emissions and time for a shipment. These last issues are less critical for the DI and handled using relatively simpler procedures. Based on our conceptual framework, we then propose a simple network model using graph theory to support the operationalization of the PI. The model covers the characteristics of the PI raised in the current literature and suggests future directions for further quantitative analyses.     

Contractibility,Strategy, and Network Dynamics: From Franchising to Licensing

The article examines the network dynamics from franchising to licensing due to the increase of contractibility of the franchiser's system-specific assets as determinant of the allocation of decision rights between the network partners. Based on the property rights approach, residual decision rights must be allocated according to the distribution of intangible knowledge assets between the franchiser and franchisee. Our analysis derives the following hypothesis: The more contractible the franchiser's system-specific assets, the higher is the tendency from franchising toward licensing. In addition, we investigate the impact of strategy change on the standardization (contractibility) of system-specific assets and the network governance. We argue that a change of strategy may increase the contractibility of system-specific know-how and consequently the tendency toward licensing. This study presents empirical evidence from company Getifix on the network dynamics from franchising to licensing.     

数字物流的信息化特征与驱动

本文在提出数字物流的基础上详细论述了数字物流的信息化特征和信息对数字物流的驱动等问题。文章认为,物流信息的数字化、知识化,电子商务与数字物流的结合,物流信息系统的综合一体化集成等是数字物流的主要特点和发展趋势;数字物流的信息处理、信息管理(即数字物流信息的集成化、物流系统的数据挖掘、物流信息的转化和知识管理)、信息可靠性(即信息的同步性、准确性和安全性)等是数字物流中的关键信息问题。     

Introduction to Institutions,Entrepreneurship and Firm Growth: From Sweden to the OECD

Small Business Economics -     

Atsushi Akera. Calculating a Natural World: Scientists, Engineers, and Computers during the Rise of U.S. Cold War Research

This ambitious book retells a familiar story by introducingnew evidence and new perspectives. The story is the originsof American computer development in the middle decades of thetwentieth century. The new evidence includes archival sourcesfrom academia and industry. The new perspective is constructivistand postconstructivist theory. The results are simultaneouslypredictable and illuminating. Akera's book is not so much a revised narrative as it is a successionof case studies, some familiar and some original. Conventional     

From the Marketplace to the Dinner Plate: The Economy, Theology, and Factory Farming

Factory farming is big business. Since the "products" of factoryfarming are living, breathing, sentient creatures, particular ethical issues are raised in a market system based on efficiency, productivity, costs of production, and profit. This paper focuses on the question of weather food animals in the American market system are subjected to unnecessary pain and suffering before they make it to our dinner plates. The single most important consideration, then, is an exploration of the extent to which economic considerations render factory farming not only lucrative but also necessary under present market conditions. The concern for "unnecessary suffering" moves the paper into an exploration of the extent to which the practices and effects of factory farming raise spiritual concerns which believers ought to address.     

农行县域蓝海：服务三农，打造特色金融品牌

公司简介中国农业银行（下称“农行”）是中国大型上市银行,中国四大银行之一;最初成立于1951年,是新中国成立的第一家国有商业银行,也是中国金融体系的重要组成部分,总行设在北京。数年来,中国农行一直位居世界五百强企业之列,在“世界银行1000强”中排名前10位左右,     

Judith Wagner DeCew,In Pursuit of Privacy: Law,Ethics and the Rise of Technology

Teaching Business Ethics -     

Steve J. Wurtzler. Electric Sounds: Technological Change and the Rise of Corporate Mass Media

In the 1920s, a series of striking innovations in sound reproductionmade the American parlor—and movie house—noisierplaces. Improvements in audio recording fostered a new demandfor the phonograph. Millions of Americans began buying theirfirst radios, even as the infant industry struggled to establishits economic base and define its cultural mission. By the late1920s, the motion picture industry was producing talking features. In Electric Sounds, Steve J. Wurtzler     

Waiting for the North to Rise: Revisiting Barber and Rifkin after a Generation of Union Financial Activism in the U.S.

A generation ago, Barber and Rifkin [The North Will Rise Again: Pensions, Politics and Power in 1980s (Beacon Press, Boston)] envisioned a new strategy for American Labor that would make extensive use of the capital in multi-employer and public pension plans. They argued that organized labor could influence how these funds were invested in order use this capital as both a weapon in struggles with recalcitrant management and as a tool to generate new union jobs. A number of union officials took this advice seriously, to make labor-connected individuals and organizations were among the most determined and successful investor activists of the 1990s. It is, however, hard to find evidence that this activism has effectively met the goals of organized labor, leading to the ironic conclusion that the innovations of labor's investor activist will do more to assist the investment community than the American labor movement.     

Economic Crisis,Poor Governance and the Rise of Populism: The Case of Greece

Intereconomics - Whereas across Western Europe, the salience of an emerging cultural cleavage has triggered the rise of right-wing populist parties that focus on immigration, in Greece the salience...     

Digital Systems,Partnership Networks,and Competition: The Co-Evolution of IOS Use and Network Position as Antecedents of Competitive Action

This study examines and tests a holistic model of relationships among interorganizational systems (IOS), partnership networks of firms, and firms' competitiveness. The model integrates concepts from these three areas of study to give a basis for more fully understanding and investigating issues inherent in IOS-intensive coopetition networks. Introducing social network analysis and competitive dynamics research into this study, we test the model using an automotive network comprised of the world's major competing sports car makers and their many value/supply chain partners. We collect and analyze data about these firms' network structures, usage of IOS, and competitive actions. Results support the holistic view that there are systematic associations between IOS use, competitive action, and network structure. Based on this view, we introduce a framework characterizing the roles of IOS in achieving firm competitiveness.     

Henry S. Rowen, Marguerite Gong Hancock, and William F. Miller, editors. Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech

General Electric is an international high-tech icon that beganwith Thomas Edison and the first electrical revolution, andthrived through every one since. Like many global giants, ithas firm American roots. Yet on June 1, 2007, the New York Timescould publish a headline in the business section entitled "ChiefSays G.E. Aims to Match the Growth Pace Set by India." In