Quality wars in the North

This paper investigates two stylised facts about quality wars between Northern firms and a Southern copycat firm in the North. First, due to low wage, a foreign or Southern copycat firm may enter the market of a developed economy inhabited by a high‐quality firm and a low‐quality domestic copycat. When the products of the high‐quality firm and the foreign copycat are vertically differentiated, the foreign copycat firm may choose an intermediate quality between the quality levels of domestic high‐ and low‐quality firms. In the second scenario where the products of the high‐quality firm and the foreign copycat are horizontally differentiated, the quality of the foreign copycat may surpass that of the domestic high‐quality firm. As the wage gap between the developed and developing countries widens, the foreign copycat is more likely to survive in the markets of developed economies.     

Dumping and Injury Margins in Markets with Horizontal as well as Vertical Product Differentiation

This paper examines the GATT/WTO rules for anti-dumping measures in a duopoly model with both horizontal and vertical product differentiation. The GATT/WTO rules allow for anti-dumping measures if domestic producers, exposed to price discrimination, also demonstrate injury where price-undercutting is an important indicator of the latter. The paper shows that the procedure for calculating injury is flawed due to negligence of quality differences in the calculation of the margin of price-undercutting. This gives countries with high-quality producers an option to practice protectionism. This asymmetry between countries in ability to implement anti-dumping measures predominantly favors the developed countries which are specialized in producing high-quality products. The paper suggests an overall critical look at the lenient rules for implementing anti-dumping measures—especially the rules for injury determination—in order to restrict the use of such measures to a minimum and to move the world economy closer to free trade.     

Pricing practices and firms' market power in international cellular markets, an empirical study

Previous studies on international marketing have typically asked the question: “how is the demand characterized across countries?” Such analysis is then used to provide guidelines for firms to enter new markets and/or to allocate marketing resources across countries. To provide such normative guidelines, however, one also needs to analyze the supply-side of the problem, i.e., ask: “what is the likely market power that firms will be able to command in different countries?” Building on the New Empirical Industrial Organization (NEIO) framework, recent research in marketing provides marketers with a variety of models to explore competitive interactions among firms in the context of a single market. The goal of this paper is to extend this literature to a multimarket/multinational context to help international marketers assess the likely market power they face when entering new countries. We illustrate the proposed method on the mobile telecommunications industry, using price and quantity data from 10 countries around the world, estimating firms' market power as a function of a number of country characteristics.The results indicate that, while the simple presence of competition diminishes firms' market power, it does not lead to perfect competition. Interestingly, a higher number of competitors in a country does not seem to have significant incremental effect on market power. In contrast, the country's commitment to a severe antitrust policy has a significant negative effect, while the monopolist's lead-time before competition is allowed has a significant positive effect on market power. These findings, together with a change in price elasticities as a result of competition, suggest that market power in different countries may originate from two sources: (i) collusive pricing among cellular operators and (ii) consumers' switching costs across service providers. For international marketers, the findings imply that the attractiveness of wealthier countries (with usually faster diffusion rates and larger market potential) may be mitigated by higher levels of competition (as a result of developed antitrust regulation and more consumer exposure to competitive marketing practices). From a policy point of view, it suggests that (in contrast to the conventional wisdom) simple deregulation may not be enough to reduce prices to competitive levels. In addition, a severe antitrust policy is crucial to achieve this goal.     

Managing for customers and employees in Hong Kong: The quality and teamwork challenges

Service marketing, total quality management, and human resource management researchers have proposed that employee teamwork is a foundation for service quality. North American research suggests that developing cooperative relationships and constructive controversy among employees can empower employees to serve customers and to strengthen their work relationships and commitment to the organization. Chinese employees in an American-style restaurant in Hong Kong were interviewed on specific incidents that affected service quality. Correlational and structural equation results support the hypotheses that cooperative goals help employees discuss their diverse views open-mindedly and that this constructive controversy results in quality customer service. Competitive and independent goals were largely negatively correlated with dynamics and outcomes. Results were interpreted as suggesting that service teams should develop strong cooperative goals and the skills and procedures of constructive controversy. Deutsch's theory of cooperation and competition, although developed largely through North American research, seems useful for understanding and developing service quality teamwork in Asia.     

水利水电工程灌浆施工技术与质量控制措施分析

水利水电工程灌浆施工技术和质量控制是一个比较复杂的系统工程,其所涉及的方面较多,本文通过对水利水电工程灌浆施工技术以及质量控制的探讨,为水利水电灌浆施工及其质量控制提供了一定的借鉴作用.     

进口大豆低温保质保水储藏技术探讨

本文重点探讨了进口大豆不同保管方式对大豆质量的影响,在降温通风中如何降低水分减量,探索控温储藏的方法以取得较好的经济效益和社会效益。     

Bank Performance and Credit Availability in the Bulgarian Banking Sector, 1997-2001

Abstract

The 1997 financial crisis wiped out 30% of the Bulgarian banking sector and created severe strains on corporations. With the establishment of the currency board in 1997 and the new Banking Law, which set the legal framework for proper bank supervision, major Bulgarian banks were rapidly privatized through sales to foreigners, now controlling around 80% of bank assets. Since 1997, the Bulgarian banking sector has recovered from the crisis by improving its profitability and efficiency and adopted a legal framework compatible with the European Union standards. Based on a regression analysis of bank balance sheets and income statements, this paper shows that low level of credit volume during 1997-1999 derived from banks' cautious stance towards credit making reflecting both the ongoing risks in the real sector, and the stringent new banking regulations. Large banks, however, benefited from scale economies in improving profitability in the same period.     

Integrating internal customer orientation,internal service quality,and customer orientation in the banking sector: an empirical study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationships between internal customer orientation (ICO), internal service quality (ISQ), and customer orientation (CO) to develop and test a conceptual model of the antecedents of CO in the banking sector. The conceptual framework consists of the following constructs: ICO, interdepartmental conflict, interdepartmental connectedness, ISQ, job satisfaction, empowerment, and CO. Moreover, 10 hypotheses were developed and tested using a sample of 202 banks. Reliability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis have been used to test the validity of the constructs, while the structural equation modelling has been used in hypotheses testing. The strength of the relationship between the constructs indicates that features of the suggested CO model including interdepartmental connectedness, interdepartmental conflict, job satisfaction, and empowerment are crucial to achieving business performance and CO. The results which emerged from our hypothesised model were found to support that ICO leads to ISQ and in turn CO. In particular, all variables show strong support for our hypothesised model, however, interdepartmental conflict was found to be a negative indicator. Findings suggest that the CO model can be deployed as a means of enhancing organisational behaviour to improve business performance.     

The impact of high-performance work systems in the health-care industry: employee reactions,service quality,customer satisfaction,and customer loyalty

The purpose of this study is to empirically test the effects of high-performance work systems (HPWS) on employee attitude, service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in health-care organisations. The proposed research model was tested using structural equation modelling for hypotheses, based on data collected from 196 pairs of employee–customer respondents in four selected hospitals with more than 500 beds. The results indicate that hospitals can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through efficient operations, employee engagement, and service quality. One of the key findings of our study is that HPWS in health-care organisations influence employee reaction and service quality.