A greater say for developing countries?

After the shipping industry it is now the turn of international civil aviation to be increasingly drawn into the North-South conflicts and controversies. The developing countries stated clearly at several conferences in the past year that they consider themselves internationally disadvantaged in this field and have taken initial steps to reduce the gap separating them from the established aviation countries.     

Is export promotion effective in developing countries? Firm-level evidence on the intensive and the extensive margins of exports

How effective are export promotion activities in developing countries? What are the channels through which export promotion affects firms' exports, the intensive margin or the extensive margin? Empirical evidence in this respect is scarce. We aim at filling this gap in the literature by providing evidence on the impact of export promotion on export performance using a unique firm-level dataset for Peru over the period 2001-2005. We find that export promotion actions are associated with increased exports, primarily along the extensive margin, both in terms of markets and products. This result is robust across alternative specifications and estimation methods.     

Is FTA/EPA effective for a developing country to attract FDI? The knowledge‐capital model revisited

To prepare an answer to the question of how a developing country can attract foreign direct investment (FDI), this paper explored the factors and policies that may help bring FDI into a developing country by utilising an extended version of the knowledge‐capital model. With a special focus on the effects of a free trade agreement (FTA) or an economic partnership agreement (EPA) between a pair of market and non‐market countries, simulations with the model revealed the following: (i) although FTA/EPA generally tends to increase FDI to a developing country, the possibility of improving welfare through increased demand for skilled and unskilled labour decreases as the size of the country grows; (ii) a developing country may suffer severe welfare losses through FTA/EPA if the availability of skilled labour is extremely limited; and (iii) a developing country can enhance welfare gains from a FTA, and it is even possible to recover the welfare effects from negative to positive, by making the arrangement an EPA.     

A modified and extended Triandis model for the enablers–process–outcomes relationship in hotel employees' knowledge sharing

The primary objective of this study is to propose and investigate the integrative model which was formulated by modifying and extending the Triandis model (TRIANM); this explores the structural relationships among knowledge-sharing enablers, process, and outcomes in hotels from a holistic perspective. The hypotheses are examined with data from 327 employees in 10 five-star hotels in Busan, Korea. Anticipated usefulness and reciprocal relationships are confirmed as the two most important enablers of employees' knowledge-sharing behaviour. Other significant enablers include facilitating conditions and social factors. New enablers, enjoyment in helping others and knowledge self-efficacy, that we have added to the TRIANM are also found to be significant. The path from knowledge-sharing behaviour to organizational innovation capability, the path from organizational innovation capability to organizational performance is found to be significant, respectively. The findings and theoretical and practical implications are then discussed.     

Is ‘Good’ governance good for business? A cross-national analysis of firms in African countries

Good governance can reduce uncertainty, transaction, search and production costs, and ultimately affect firm performance. In this paper, we explore the link between good governance and the profitability of individual firms in African countries. We employ the governance indices developed at the World Bank and assemble a sample of companies from 21 countries over four years. Contrary to prior research that found a negative association between institutional development and profitability, our evidence shows that an improvement of good governance in countries currently with low levels of governance ratings has greater positive effects on the firm profitability than a similar improvement in countries with relatively higher ratings of good governance. Good governance reduces the variability of the company's profitability, leading to high-return and low-risk investments. Finally, we find that the role of good governance depends upon the country's income level. When the income level is lower, an improvement in public governance is more likely to impact firm performance than when the income level is relatively higher. Good governance is more important for the stability of the profitability of firms in countries with higher levels of good governance ratings than lower ratings.     

The saving rate and the upgrade of the trade commodity structure in developing countries: A dynamic H–O model under an oligopolistic market structure

This paper constructs an oligopolistic dynamic Heckscher–Ohlin (H–O) model of a small open economy to analyze the relationship between the saving rate and the upgrade of the trade commodity structure. The analysis shows that the saving rate determines the trade commodity structure of a country in the long-run equilibrium. Furthermore, a developing country with a low capital–labor ratio in the initial state will change from exporting labor-intensive goods in the initial state to exporting capital-intensive goods in the long-run equilibrium if it has a higher saving rate, and this upgrade of trade commodity structure has a social welfare effect under an oligopolistic market structure. The effect of trade policy on the upgrade of the trade commodity structure is uncertain in our model; therefore, a high saving rate is the irreplaceable driving force for trade commodity structure upgrades in developing countries.     

How do racial minority consumers process a model race cue in CSR advertising? A comparison of Asian and White Americans

This study proposes that model race and race of consumers play an important role in processing corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising. The aim of the study is to examine why a racial mismatch between target consumers and featured model race might work better among Asian Americans in the context of CSR ads, guided by motivated reasoning and self-referencing information processing mechanisms. Through an experiment, the study finds that people who perceive that money means social status tend to have more positive responses to CSR ads regardless of their race or ethnicity. In addition, Asian Americans who highly equate money with status are likely to evaluate CSR ads featuring a white model more positively than the ad with an Asian model. The study also reveals that Asian Americans with higher money as status perception tend to self-reference only when they view the CSR ad featuring a white model, but not an Asian model. However, White Americans do not vary in self-referencing based on model’s race when viewing the CSR ads.