The use of R&D consortia as market barriers: Case studies of consortia in the United States,Japan, and Western Europe

There are strong temptations to use research and development (R&D) consortia as barriers to trade and investment. The cases discussed here, the VLSI Project in Japan, Sematech in the United States, the Joint European Submicron Silicon Initiative (JESSI), the European Eureka EU95 program, the European Vision 1250 program, and NHK Engineering Services in Japan are all in the field of high technology electronics. Electronics has been made a priority for public research and development efforts because the governments of advanced industrial countries believe that competitiveness in high technology electronics is important for both national security and overall economic competitiveness. R&D consortia are used by governments and the European Community to pool the risks of the development of new technologies. Access to full membership in these R&D consortia in all three regions is limited, as a rule, to firms owned and headquartered in the region. Access to the technology created is limited in a variety of ways, the most important of which is the inability to work with the technologies themselves at an early stage, which is a major disadvantage in high technology industries. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The determinants of the transportation outsourcing strategy for the express delivery company

This article explores the determinants that affect the transportation outsourcing strategy of the express delivery company in Taiwan. The results show that the following situations result in higher outsourcing probability: customer companies belonging to the high-tech industry, customers bringing higher freight revenue, customers having a better relationship with the case study company, and customers’ company having a bigger scale. The findings provide enterprises with a reference of decision making to follow in implementing the transportation outsourcing measure for different customers’ needs. The outsourcing strategy increases the flexibility of operating funds to enhance customer service quality.     

The determinants of new firm formation in italian manufacturing

This paper focuses on entry of small firms in the manufacturing industries. It is argued that the exit option can be viewed as an insurance against risks of failure, increasing the likelihood of entry in an uncertain environment; the result is implicit in recent stochastic models of competition and entry decision under uncertainty. A regression model of industry birth rates in the Italian manufacturing industries provides empirical evidence on the impact of factors determining the decision to enter and the supply of new entrepreneurs. In our estimates, yearly entry rates are found to decrease with entry costs and barriers and to increase with market growth, expected growth of small firms, risks of failure and an index of spatial concentration of activities.     

Resource determinants of strategy and performance: The case of British exporters

This study adopts the RBV of the firm in order to identify critical advantage-generating resources and capabilities with strong positive export strategy and performance implications. The proposed export performance model is tested using a structural equation modelling approach on a sample of 356 British exporters. We examine the individual as well as the concurrent (simultaneous) direct and indirect effects of five resource bundles on export performance. We find that four resources/capabilities: managerial, knowledge, planning, and technology, have a significant positive direct effect on export performance, while relational and physical resources exhibited no unique positive effect. We also find that the firm's export strategy mediates the resource–performance nexus in the case of managerial and knowledge-based resources. The theoretical and methodological grounding of this study contributes to the advancement of export related research by providing better specification of the nature of the effects – direct or indirect – of particular resource factors on export performance.     

The determinants of foreign giving: An exploratory empirical investigation of US manufacturing firms

To date, there is ample evidence on the determinants of domestic charitable contributions made by US firms. However, to the best of our knowledge, no one has investigated the determinants of foreign charitable contributions made by US firms. Using the Socrates KLD database and the US M&A data for the 2004–2010 period, we find evidence that foreign giving by US manufacturing firms is linked to certain key variables. Specifically, we find evidence that variables found significant in the domestic giving literature (pre entry return on assets, size, debt to asset ratio, market to book ratio, and research and development expense as a function of sales) are also found significant for foreign giving. However, and notably, cultural distance and foreign sales percentage have been found to be important discriminators between manufacturing firms who give abroad and those who do not. It appears that high international business experience (proxied by the foreign sales ratio) and operations in culturally distant countries motivate foreign giving. Finally, subsample analysis involving developed and developing countries suggests that cultural distance matters for developing countries, but does not for the developed country subsample. Firm level profitability matters for developed countries, but not for developing countries. Future research may be expanded to include the dollar amounts of giving and a bigger sample size. Differences in foreign giving patterns between manufacturing and non-manufacturing firms, and by firms in countries other than the US, may also be explored.     

The determinants of retailers' margin related bargaining power: evidence from the Irish food manufacturing industry

This paper investigates the determinants of retailers' margin related bargaining power in the context of food retailer-manufacturer relationships. The study is based on an empirical analysis of 97 trading relationships between Irish food manufacturers and their Irish and British retail customers. It complements earlier research, focused mainly on structural characteristics of the industries, by integrating product and relationship characteristics into the analysis. Using measures based on manufacturers' perceptions, the study finds that retailers' margin related power over food manufacturers is positively related to the importance of economies of scale in manufacturing, retail concentration and own brand penetration of the market. The results also show that retailers' margin related power increases as product shelf-life increases and as manufacturers' specific investments increase.     

Determinants of Firm R&D: The Role of Relationship-Specific Interactions for R&D Spillovers

Research and Development (R&D) is a key component behind technological development and economic growth; therefore, understanding the drivers of R&D is crucial. An interesting question is the role of technology spillovers, transferred by trade, and their impact on firm R&D. Here we analyze not only how international and domestic inter- and intra-industry technology spillovers affect firm R&D but also the relatively unexplored issue of how relationship-specific interactions between buyer and seller affect such spillovers. We find international technology spillovers to be larger and more significant than domestic inter- and intra-industry spillovers. Moreover, relationship-specific interactions between seller and buyer enhance technology spillovers in general and international spillovers in particular.     

An empirical analysis on the determinants of CEE government bond spreads

This paper studies the spread between 10 year Euro denominated Central and Eastern European (CEE) government bonds and their German counterpart. With newly available time series, regressions are run for each country separately in order to deliver a first insight into the underlying determinants. While higher ECB reference rate and market volatility increase bond spreads and turn out to be the main driving factors, there is no common pattern of macroeconomic fundamentals, pointing to strong heterogeneity within the CEE region. Overall, market variables are more significant than fundamentals during 1999 to 2007.     

对制造业企业成功实施ERP的深层思考

ERP起源于20世纪90年代初,由美国Garmer Group咨询公司首先提出.实质上它是一种将先进的企业管理理念与信息技术相融合的系统,是在先进的供应链管理理念指导下而诞生的.我国引进ERP也有近30年的历史,在我国制造业企业在ERP实施过程中的问题,分析其成因,并创造性的将"项目监理"的概念引入到ERP的实施过程中,从根本上解决了ERP实施过程中企业人力资源瓶颈和甲乙方信息不对称的固有问题.总结提炼出在我国制造业企业成功实施ERP的深层思考以飨读者.     

Evolution of multinational strategy: Evidence from scottish manufacturing subsidiaries

Recent structural changes in the EC have focused attention on the process and natures of strategy formulation and evolution at the subsidiary level of multinational corporations. This paper reviews alternative conceptual approaches to subsidiary strategy, with particular attention to the integration/responsiveness grid developed by Prahalad and Doz. Using data obtained from a postal survey of 121 manufacturing multinationals located in Scotland, the validity of the grid is assessed and a mapping of subsidiary strategy and its evolution over time is proposed. The results are not wholly in line with Prahalad and Doz, yet yield interesting propositions for multinational firms and policy makers.     

Reversed servitization paths: a case analysis of two manufacturers

The literature on service business in manufacturing companies posits that manufacturers “servitize” by increasing the proportion of services offered. This study presents two paths that are contrary to such forward-unidirectional servitization, indicating “reversed servitization.” In the first case, a capital goods manufacturer lost visibility to its installed base due to evolving product technology. We use the case of photocopier manufacturer Xerox to support our findings; a regulation change forced Xerox to move from a service-based toward a product-based business model. We thus propose that influencing environmental factors need to be researched and that the literature of organizational ecology may serve as a complementary perspective.     

Under-Reporting of R&D in Small Firms: The Impact on International R&D Comparisons

There is a widely recognised tendency for conventional measures of R&D activity to under-estimate the R&D investments of small companies. This arises due to small firms' emphasis on developmental rather than fundamental research, and because this activity is often informally organised. International survey evidence suggests a greater degree of formality in the organisation of R&D in German small firms. This reduces the likely degree of under-estimation of German small firms' R&D activity relative to that in the U.K. As a result, aggregate R&D figures may be under-estimating the true level by 13.9 per cent in the U.K. and 2.4 per cent in Germany. This is equivalent to around half of the historical difference between aggregate levels of business R&D in the U.K. and Germany.     

上海市R＆D资源投入分析及相关政策建议

对上海市的R＆D投入情况与国际上的主要发达国家的R＆D投入情况进行了对比分析，发现目前上海市的R＆D投入强度的增长趋势和国际R＆D强度的增长的一般规律基本相符，但投入水平仍处于相对落后的状态。针对这一状况，对如何提高上海市的R＆D投入水平提出了相应的政策建议。     

The rise of 3-D printing: The advantages of additive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing

The use of additive manufacturing technologies in different industries has increased substantially during the past years. Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly line that enabled mass production of identical products in the 20^th century. Currently, additive manufacturing enables and facilitates production of moderate to mass quantities of products that can be customized individually. Additive manufacturing technologies are opening new opportunities in terms of production paradigm and manufacturing possibilities. Manufacturing lead times will be reduced substantially, new designs will have shorter time to market, and customer demand will be met more quickly. This article identifies additive manufacturing implementation challenges, highlights its evolving technologies and trends and their impact on the world of tomorrow, discusses its advantages over traditional manufacturing, explores its impact on the supply chain, and investigates its transformative potential and impact on various industry segments.     

Building successful brands: The strategic options

The debate on whether to include brands on the balance sheet has created a new interest in branding strategies. Successful brands clearly generate higher returns on sales and on investment. But quality and service, rather than advertising, is the best way of creating such brands. Acquisition strategies frequently produce inconsistent portfolios of brands. The policy towards brand extension is shown to depend upon the similarity of positioning strategies between current and new brands.     

论政府会计核算基础的选择

通过对政府会计确认基础的比较和选择来分析权责发生制政府会计的改革在构建以绩效为导向的政府成本会计体系中的作用.     

论政府会计核算基础的选择

通过时政府会计确认基础的比较和选择来分析权责发生制政府会计的改革在构建以绩效为导向的政府成本会计体系中的作用.