Management strategies of multinationals in developing countries

To what extent do American, Japanese and European multinationals follow different management strategies in developing countries? What effects do these strategies have on the developing countries involved? The free trade zones in Malaysia offer a seldom opportunity to compare companies from all three geographical areas operating under homogeneous conditions.     

MNC strategies and linkage effects in developing countries

The study addresses the implications MNC strategies have for linkage effects in developing countries. Two contrasting MNC strategies, which reflect an integration-responsiveness dichotomy, are scrutinized in terms of their effects on jobs among local linkage partners in developing countries. It is hypothesized that the investments of MNCs pursuing local responsiveness create more jobs among local linkage partners, but imply less job upgrading, when compared to investments undertaken by MNCs following strategies of global integration. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of Danish MNCs with extensive investments in developing countries.     

Controversial strategies for the regional advancement of developing countries

The following article outlines the theories of development strategy which approach the subject from the theory of growth and discusses their practical applicability to planning activities in developing countries.     

Industrial buyers' expectations of supplier-attributes across developing countries: Implications for marketing strategies

This paper presents a cross-country comparative study of industrial buyers' expectations of supplier attributes which manifest in the process of supplier selection. The results indicate a variance in these expectations across the countries, implying a multinational rather than a global approach in marketing industrial goods beyond domestic borders. The possible role of cultural factors in the formation of these divergent expectations is suggested. The implications of the findings for developing appropriate marketing strategies, and for future research, are discussed.     

Tax reforms in developing countries

Given the low level of tax revenue and the contradictory structure of tax legislation in many developing countries, there is broad agreement on the need for tax reforms in those countries. The following article reviews the problems associated with instituting such changes.     

Economic recovery in developing countries

Plans and proposals for stimulating the world economy and thus aiding economic recovery in the developing countries have been many and varied, ranging from massive transfer of resources, whether automatic or discretionary, through the immediate programme of the Brandt Commission to a concentration first of all on recovery in the industrial countries. This article takes a critical look at the most important proposals to date.     

Financial policy in developing countries

The present financial policies of the developing countries are hardly likely to create favourable conditions for economic growth. A change can only be brought about if the financing of development projects and the imports of consumer goods can be successfully integrated in an overall plan for economic growth and the generation of new sources of revenue for the state.     

Adjustment constraints in developing countries

The debt crisis of the eighties has compelled many developing countries to catch up on a painful adjustment backlog. In addition to traditional stabilization measures sponsored by the IMF, many countries are now acquainted with the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank. Some have implemented these programmes successfully, others have terminated them after a short period or only partially completed them. What are the reasons for this?     

Financial opening in developing countries

Many developing countries are currently considering liberalisation of external capital flows. While the ultimate objective of financial opening is to raise efficiency and growth, the reform process must be carefully designed to achieve these results. A recent conference has discussed the policy choices.     

Land reform in developing countries

There are signs indicating that in many developing countries land ownership has become more concentrated in the past decade. This is all the more significant as in developing countries the large majority of the population derives its income from farming. Land reforms are needed to ensure a more equitable distribution of agricultural income.     

Tourism promotion in developing countries

When announcing its ideas on development policy in the Second Development Decade which began in 1971, the Federal Government said that it “wishes to promote tourism in sultable less developed countries (LDCs) through improvement of the infrastructure, especially transport, provision of accommodation and training of the required personnel, making use of development banks in suitable cases”.     

German investment in developing countries

The Pros and Cons of direct investment promotion measures in overseas countries have recently become the subject of fierce controversy in all industrialised countries, including the Federal Republic of Germany. Advocates and opponents of such measures, however, almost exclusively try to analyse the desirability and effects of such investments in the industrialised countries only, virtually disregarding the problem of direct investment in developing countries. The Department on Development Policies of the Hamburg Institute for International Economics has therefore recently begun to investigate the volume, the motivation, and the success of German investments in the “Third World”. The following report discusses the first results of this study.     

Agricultural policy in developing countries

Development failures are less the result of “natural” short-comings, but are caused instead by false conceptions and by the misapplication of experience from highly-developed economic systems to countries in the initial development stage. The following article points out the pit-falls and discusses some alternative strategies.     

Employment policies in developing countries

The ILO World Conference on Employment was held in Geneva from June 4 to 17, 1976 and after long discussions adopted an action programme which provided for quite a number of measures designed to ensure full employment in developing countries until the year 2000. The problems posed by a policy of full employment in developing countries are indicated in the following article which demonstrates that a change in the inherited power structures is a major prerequisite for an effective policy of full employment.     

State enterprises in developing countries

The role of state-owned enterprises in the development process in the Third World is the subject of serious controversy. This article attempts to test empirically whether there is a relationship between the importance of public production in developing countries and their overall economic performance.     

Savings mobilisation in developing countries

Stagnating development aid and continued reluctance on the part of western commercial banks to grant new loans to problem debtor countries have led many developing countries to pay greater attention to the mobilisation of their own resources. This article outlines a strategy for increasing the extent to which domestic savings are made available for development financing.     

Growth policies in developing countries

Long-term growth in most developing countries is driven by the adaptation of technology from developed countries. The question, however, of how to promote technology adaptation is a difficult one. The following article introduces a transaction cost perspective and applies it to the concrete and—against the background of the 4th Ministerial Conference of the WTO in November 2001—topical question: how do WTO rules impact on development in terms of technology adaptation? This issue is of utmost importance to the EU, which put forward the argument that the new Trade Round had to become a “Development Round”.