Designing Effective International Business Programmes for Senior Export Executives

In nearly all developing countries, the need to upgrade the marketing management skills of business executives in international trade is increasing rapidly. The capacity of existing training institutions, however, needs to be strengthened in order to meet the future requirements of the business community. To date, most training is provided by business schools, institutes of foreign trade, or other similar training institutes which have limited experience in executive development, particularly in international business. Organizing training for business executives differs greatly from that for business students. Training institutions and trainers involved in providing programmes to experienced target groups must introduce new approaches, methods, tools and structures when organizing such training. Programmes need to be practical and relevant to participants. Trainers of export business executives should regard themselves as training managers accountable for the delivery of effective training programmes enabling participants to apply immediately their newly acquired skills and now-how in their respective organizations.     

Systems Perspective on Automobile and Appliance Warranty Problems

Warranties must protect consumers to serve manufacturers, but competition is deficient as a consumer protection. Consumers seeking aid through legislation and litigation have forced government to create new institutions, but consumers can play a still more effective role in holding both government and industry to standards of social accountability.     

Conditionality and Aid Effectiveness Re‐evaluated

This paper evaluates aid by considering how effective aid has been in exerting leverage on policy choices. It is rather easy to demonstrate that if a country is unwilling to implement policy reforms, attaching conditions to aid will not ensure sustained reform. In this sense conditionality does not work. This ignores the fact that donors, through aid and conditions, can influence recipient policies. The argument of this paper is that if the analysis focuses on channels of influence, one can better identify ways to enhance aid effectiveness. Reform is a slow and difficult process and donors would be more effective ‘development partners’ if they see their role as being to support rather than force this process. In simple terms, donors should provide the information and technical assistance to help governments to make policy choices, rather than dictating choices by imposing conditions.     

The Management of Discovery

Academicinstitutions are realigning with major envi- ronmental partners, notably the federal and state governments, and business institutions. This article examines the role of universities in the "technology transfer" process, involving delivery of services influential in new product development.     

构建和谐社会与创新审计工作

审计机关是政府的重要组成部门,应在构建社会主义和谐社会的进程中发挥积极作用.审计机关和审计人员应及时进行审计工作创新,更新调整审计理念,转变原有思维方式,改变原有不适应形式发展的习惯做法,使审计的作用得到更高层次的发挥.本文从构建和谐社会过程中审计创新的着眼点,结合审计工作实际,探讨创新审计工作在构建和谐社会过程中需要处理好的几个方面的关系.     

测量审核机构规范运作要素分析

为了进一步规范测量审核机构活动,确保测量审核工作规范、有效进行,以便向实验室认可机构或政府部门提供更具质量保证的测量审核服务,本文以测量审核机构运作的过程控制为着力点,对测量审核运作涉及的各个要素进行分析,为测量审核机构提供参考。     

Donors’ Mechanisms for Financing International and National Public Goods: Loans or Grants?

This paper investigates whether three classes of donors – multilateral organisations, regional institutions and bilateral donors – tailor their mix of grants and loans to reflect international benefit spillovers and recipient‐specific benefits, derived from aid‐funded activities in developing and transition countries. To account for recipient benefit shares, donors should use a greater share of grants when supported activities yield a larger portion of international public benefits. A greater reliance on loans is appropriate when a large portion of recipient‐specific benefits are associated with the assistance. By reflecting recipient benefit shares in the grant‐loan mix, donors’ assistance also promotes allocative efficiency. Using the Credit Reporting System (CRS) database from OECD for 1980–2000, our analysis establishes that various donor classes apply different grant‐loan mixtures when supporting the environment, health, knowledge and governance sectors of recipient countries. We employ analysis of variance and other statistical comparisons of the means to investigate differences among donor classes. We demonstrate that bilateral donors do the best job in tailoring their grant‐loan mix to accord with the extent of international public good benefits embodied in the aid‐supported activity. Multilateral organisations’ grant‐loan mix is intermediate of the three types of donors, with some evidence of them relying more on grants to finance activities that possess a larger share of international public good spillovers. Regional institutions, however, do not discriminate their grant‐loan mix by either sectors or the associated public good spillovers. This finding suggests that regional development banks need to adjust their grant‐loan mix to better account for international benefit spillovers if these institutions are to warrant the increased funds to underwrite regional public goods that they have been seeking. If, however, their mix is institutionally set, then the stakeholders must give these institutions greater flexibility to tailor their grants and loans to who benefits from the aid‐supported public goods. This is the first paper to empirically ascertain whether the grant‐loan mix is tied to the inherent publicness of the aid‐funded activities.     

强化事业单位财务资金使用之我见

加强事业单位财务资金使用核算和管理,对完善行政单位财务体制、充分发挥事业单位职能有着十分重大的意义.目前,我国行政事业单位的财务资金使用还存在着经费超支、专项资金开支不明、财务票据管理混乱、坏账和呆账现象突出等问题.应强化财务资金使用过程的控制和预算外资金的管理,坚持专款专用原则,建立有效的项目管理制度,提高财务人员的素质,以提高事业单位资金的使用效益.     

Technology and counterfeiting in the fashion industry: Friends or foes?

This article addresses the relationship between technology and counterfeiting in the fashion industry. Starting with an economic analysis of counterfeiting, I examine how new technologies encourage counterfeiters while at the same time provide important tools to combat it. The development of sophisticated technologies to obtain, process, and reproduce images and the extensive use of new digital channels for online sales have simplified both production and distribution of counterfeit products. Based on tagging and DNA analysis, as well as web-based monitoring systems, trace and track technologies allow rights holders to combat counterfeiting through effective control of the entire production and distribution chain. This article considers an innovative method of product monitoring based on latest-generation IT platforms, integrated with portable devices, that can easily and immediately verify product authenticity. The spread of these new technological systems is closely related to the role of a party that is glaringly absent in the battle against counterfeiting: the consumer. Indeed, new technologies are the driving element in a virtuous circle where the consumer becomes an essential instrument in the battle against counterfeiting, along with the other players involved: companies, public institutions, and civil society.     

How to Make Higher Education Institutions Innovative: An Application of Market Orientation Practices

In the present era, higher education is considered a booming and significantly contributing sector to the economy of many countries. Due to the intense competition prevailing in the higher education sector, higher education institutions need to become market oriented and innovate in courses, delivery methods and student support services. Consequently, they could meet increasing expectations placed on them for quality of education and support services. The main aim of this study is to investigate the influence of both market orientation and its dimensions, on innovation in higher education institutions. This study also considered the age of the faculty a moderator to these influences. The sample comprised 270 managers and course cordinators attached to faculties, schools or units in Sri Lankan higher education institutions. The surveys were administered for data collection. The study has several contributions to the literature- all the three dimensions of market orientation, significantly and positively influenced innovation in higher education institutions. The age of the faculty significantly moderated the influence of both market orientation and its dimensions (Intelligence Generation and Responsiveness), on innovation. This study also expand the focus of theory of six sigma by applying it from market orientation and customer orientation perspectives. Finally, this study has modified items measuring several constructs to suit the higher education context which can be used by future researchers. From the findings, several practical implications are given to officials in higher education institutions for innovating in courses, delivery methods and support services. The article concludes with many useful directions for future researchers.     

Arab‐related Bilateral and Multilateral Sources of Development Finance: Issues,Trends, and the Way Forward

This paper analyses the organisational structure as well as the characteristics of development finance provided by Arab donor countries. This is done with a comparative view in relation to western donors and with the aim to develop recommendations as to how Arab development finance can be strengthened and rendered more effective for the new millennium. In the 1960s and 1970s Arab donors established a variety of national and multilateral agencies. These agencies share many characteristics of their western counterparts, but some also exhibit distinctive features. Both in terms of absolute volume as well as generosity measured by aid as a percentage of GDP, Arab countries have been important donors in the past, even though recent years have seen a significant fall in Arab aid. Reversing this downfall in aid, targeting its aid better towards the poor and very poor recipient countries and raising the grant share and the concessionality of loans for these countries together with a reallocation of aid towards the social sectors of human development would render Arab aid‐giving more effective in terms of poverty alleviation and more in line with western aid. A greater willingness to participate in the ongoing discussions amongst western donors about the proper objectives and design of development finance would help Arab donorsto achieve the recognition they truly deserve. Closer cooperation with western donors would be a logical consequence of taking such a step. However, this would also need to be matched by a greater willingness on the part of western donors to take their Arab counterparts seriously as partners of development finance.     

Towards a new international financial order: Why reform progress is so slow

The limited progress made so far in reforming the international financial architecture cannot be attributed to insufficient reform-mindedness of the institutions involved or to a lack of reform proposals in the literature. Rather, progress is slow as almost every step towards reform involves serious trade-offs, which must be analysed carefully before reforms are implemented. Some of these trade-offs are of immediate concern for defining the role of international financial institutions, notably the IMF, with respect to crisis prevention and crisis resolution.     

Reforming Property Rights Institutions in Developing Countries: Can FDI Inflows Help?

This paper analyses factors that can facilitate property rights institutions reform in developing countries (DC). Inspired by the works of North and Weingast (Journal of Economic History, 49, 1989, 803) and Acemoglu et al. (American Economic Review, 95, 2005a, 546; 2008) relating to the process of institutional reforms in England during the seventeenth century, I assume that FDI inflows could contribute to property rights reform in DC that are initially endowed with a minimum of effective institutions of constraints on the executive (i.e. effective institutions of checks and balances). Using five‐year panel data over the period 1970–2005 with a sample of 80 DC, and after correcting for endogeneity, I find that conditioned on the initial level of constraints on the executive, the effect of FDI inflows on the probability of reforming property rights is positive and significant. The minimum level of constraints on the executive necessary for the catalytic role of FDI inflows in reforming property rights institutions is 3.6. Only 20 out of the 80 DC in the sample have this minimum level of constraints on the executive. Among the 20 countries five are in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

The role of regional formal institutions and foreign direct investment in innovation in Chinese enterprises

China features high degrees of income inequality, regional disparity and regional institutional diversity. With disparities in institutional development across regions, Chinese firms tend to have different levels of innovation as the costs, risks, efficiency and incentives of firms in innovation are affected by the regional institutional building. This article investigates the role of regional formal institutions in the innovation process in Chinese enterprises. It suggests that regional formal institutions (reflected by government support), financial institutions, educational institutions and taxation institutions promote innovation in Chinese firms, while they fail to discover such an impact from legal institutions. Also, regional formal institutions positively moderate Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) spillovers on process innovation.     

Paths of economic development: A global evidence for the mediating role of human capital

ABSTRACT

This paper revisits the roles of institutions and human capital in the development process by using structural equation modeling with a latent construct. Two models are constructed by using the data of 143 countries with 14 publicly available indicators; non-mediated (Model A) and mediated one (Model B). A path between institutional quality and economic development is identified in Model A and found as significant. When human capital is added into the Model B as a mediator, the direct relationship between institutional quality and economic development which is confirmed in Model A becomes insignificant. This evidence contributes to the debate by explaining the roles of institutions and human capital in the development process, based on the existing level of institutional quality that determines conditions on decisions for starting or sustaining the development process. In other words, (a) improving institutions in addition to human capital is needed for the countries with low level of institutional quality to start development process and; (b) on the other hand, since the human capital develops immunity on the quality of the institutions, human capital plays a more basic role to sustain the development process for the countries with a high level of institutional quality.     

A Review of the Structure and Participants in Cameroon's Advertising Market

This article reviews the structure of Cameroon's advertising market. After discussing changes in the market since 1985, the authors describe its current structure. A comprehensive approach leads them to consider the market as a system based on interaction between institutions or organizations involved directly or indirectly in the advertising process. The authors conclude that, overall, Cameroon's advertising market is weakly structured and dominated by a small number of large advertisers. They feel that the advertising agency system, especially in terms of the services it offers, is poorly adapted to Cameroon's small and medium-sized advertisers. They therefore propose a system of small and medium-sized agencies that would play a specific role geared to the limited needs of these advertisers.     

Implementing QFD for Improving Quality in Education

Abstract

In these times of changing student demographics, diminishing government funding, and dramatically increased competition, educational institutions in the United States have discovered the need for implementing the principles of total quality management. With resources becoming more limited, efficiency and effectiveness in meeting the needs of the customer becomes more critical. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the quality function deployment (QFD) method can be used to measure customer satisfaction in educational institutions. Specifically, this paper reviews TQM concepts in an educational context, briefly summarizes the application of these concepts at several institutions, and demonstrates the QFD principles as utilized to review the MBA program at Grand Valley State University. By using the QFD method as a model, this paper demonstrates how a complex process can become manageable.     

破解国际物流之瓶颈

国际物流主要是为进出口贸易实现国际运输。其业务范围涉及极广,业务流程长,涉及到出口、远洋运输、进口提货等多个环节,货主常常在报关、安全运输、提单提货等环节遇到陷阱而"卡壳",造成被动局面,要成为国际物流的舵手,时时掌握主动把握局面,关键就是要破解以下几个瓶颈。