Economic growth and foreign aid

Japan’s metamorphosis from a less developed country to one of the world’s most Important industrial nations was closely connected with increasing foreign pressures. Where did they result from and what will be their consequences for the country’s economic policy?     

The case against foreign aid

In the words of the author: “The arguments of this article go counter to widely held notions. If they are shown to be wrong they will have to be reconsidered, but their unfashionable nature alone is no ground for doing so.” We believe that this article could be the beginning of a discussion on development policy.     

US foreign aid trends: A reassessment

Two years ago an article of this author appeared in these pages¹, showing that US economic assistance was rapidly declining and outlining rather a bleak future. Foreign aid was being subjected to a great deal of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum², and a foreign assistance bill had actually been defeated in the US Senate by an “unholy alliance of Old Guard conservatives and ‘dovish’ liberals.” But now the author is inclined to believe that together with greater realism and more reliance on multilateral rather than bilateral aid a modest improvement has taken place during the past couple of years.     

The decline and fall of US foreign aid

Foreign aid, once hailed as “the most unsordid act in history”, is in deep trouble. Despite the exhortations of the Pearson Report¹, the call for sweeping reform by various governmental commissions and the annual plea to Congress of the Agency for International Development (AID), economic assistance is rapidly declining, and the future looks even bleaker.     

A system dynamics model as a decision aid in evaluating and communicating complex market entry strategies

Developing a market entry strategy is a critical activity for any firm but all the more so for those firms that wish to successfully compete in today's challenging global economy. Unfortunately, developing a market entry strategy is an ill-structured and complex activity for which structured approaches have proven inadequate. In less structured situations, data driven and model based decision-support systems (DSS) have been shown to be of significant help to decision-makers faced with such tasks. Getting managers to use such systems, however, is a major challenge that has been the subject of considerable research in the field of DSS. As far back as the 1970's scholars identified reasons why managers are reluctant to use such systems. Among the most often cited reasons why managers are reluctant to use these systems are: they do not understand the model inherent in the DSS; they do not know when to use them; they are unable to extend the use of the DSS; or they are unable to explain the model or its output to others. This paper describes the process of building a system dynamics model that can be employed by marketing managers to help them test the effectiveness of different market entry strategies, and equally important to help them to explain the system's logic and output. The model was built in a bottom-up fashion with the help of a team of marketing managers. In this way the team that helped build the model not only felt a sense of ownership concerning the model, but were also be able to better explain and defend their proposed strategy.     

Self-initiated foreign experience as accelerated development: Influences of gender

This study explored gender influences on self-initiated foreign experiences (SFE) and the contribution of that experience to international career development. SFE provided accelerated development opportunities for both men and women, but in this sample provided a deeper and more integrated experience for women compared to men. The propensity for women to seek out less risky and more secure environments afforded them greater career opportunities and resultant career capital. SFE provides a positive conduit to accumulate career capital for global careers.     

Investment motive as a moderator of cultural-distance and relative knowledge relationships with foreign subsidiary ownership structure

In this analysis, we seek to contribute to the growing body of literature exploring moderators of cross-national differences and foreign subsidiary ownership structure relationships, by developing the argument that cultural distance and majority-owned foreign subsidiary relationships will be positively moderated if a subsidiary serves a manufacturing motive, as opposed to a market-seeking motive. Additionally, we argue that relationships between increasingly greater levels of host country technical knowledge, relative to a firm's home country, and the use of majority-owned foreign subsidiary structures will be negatively moderated by manufacturing motives. These ideas are tested, and supported, in the empirical context of subsidiaries of Japanese automotive firms from 1993 through 2009.     

Foreign subsidiaries as vehicles of industry 4.0: The case of foreign subsidiaries in a post-transition economy

We ask whether foreign subsidiaries may work as entities that neutralize the threat of marginalization of the post-transition economies in terms of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) adoption. Building on a conceptual model of foreign subsidiaries as I4.0 vehicles, we conducted interviews with 440 foreign subsidiaries from the manufacturing sector established in Poland. The originality of the paper concerns three key issues. First, our study shows that the strategy adopted by the headquarters is critical, as it impacts the possibility of foreign subsidiaries to act as vehicles of I4.0 transformation in host economies. Second, embeddedness in local environment guarantees the transition of knowledge, whereas the innovation capacity of a foreign subsidiary does not seem to play any role. Third, we focus on foreign subsidiaries established in a post-transition economy. The results of our research enrich the literature on types of foreign subsidiaries in transmitting and diffusing the knowledge received from headquarters and expose the prominent role of links with host market entities.     

买“洋”车你得当心！

如今,汽车正以其不可抗拒的独特魅力吸引着越来越多消费者关注的目光,特别是进口原装车更以其卓越的性能而受到国人的青睐,企盼买上一辆进口原装车成了一些人心头的一份梦想.可当你真买"洋车"时,也许你花了大价钱买回来的进口车,非但没有质量保证,而且还存在着极大的安全隐患,甚至会让你费时费力去维权.为了减少许多不必要的"麻烦",买"洋"车你得悠着点.     

Direct foreign investment in japan as a means of market entry: The case of European firms 1

Japan, one of the world's largest and strongest economies, attracts a tiny level of inward direct investment. This neglect is particularly true of European multinationals. This article examines a sample of European companies which have Japanese manufacturing affiliates, to assess direct investment as a means of access to the Japanese market. It examines the objectives and strategies of entry and evaluates the outcome in terms of successful penetration of the Japanese market. The joint venture route is a preferred means of initial entry and the research allows evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of this mode of entry to the Japanese market.