国内外合成橡胶供需态势分析

分析了国外合成橡胶的供需状况，预测了未来几年的发展趋势，对我国合成橡胶工业的发展提出了建议。     

Flexibility and rigidity in customization and build-to-order production

This paper deals with the efforts of firms to tailor their products to the needs of individual customers. The overall aim is to analyse the features of the evolving activity structures where customized offerings are created with ‘near mass production efficiency’. The paper begins with a literature review outlining modularity and build-to-order production as key features of customizing. The empirical setting of the case study is Volvo Cars' activity structure for build-to-order production. This structure is compared with previous means of making products available. The conclusion of the study is that activity structures for build-to-order production require extensive coordination, exchange of information, and interaction across company boundaries. The analysis shows that these structures rely on flexibility in some dimensions, while in others they build on rigidity. The paper concludes with implications for suppliers regarding how to combine flexibility and rigidity in order to be able to customize at reasonable costs.     

浅析我国纺织服装产业结构调整升级与社会责任实现

企业社会责任的战略化、标准化、科学化管理日益成为现代企业发展新趋势。企业社会责任的实现已成为产业结构调整升级的一个重要约束条件。企业应把承担社会责任变成战略和行为的有机部分,促进纺织服装业结构调整升级健康运行,为经济平稳较快发展做出贡献。     

Honeymoons and Liabilities: The Relationship between Age and Performance in Research and Development Alliances

The use of strategic alliances by technology ventures has increased dramatically over the last 20 years. During this period companies not only have increased the use of alliances but also have used them in more strategically important areas, particularly in research and development (R&D) and new product development. Thus, successful management of strategic alliances in high‐technology industries has become critical to a firm's new product development and ultimately to firm performance. Yet little is known about what determines the performance of individual alliances. This article examines the relationship between the age of an alliance and the performance of the alliance. Two competing hypotheses regarding the form of the functional relationship between alliance age and alliance performance are developed and are tested. First, a liability of newness hypothesis, which posits that alliance performance increases in a linear fashion over time, is tested. Then a honeymoon hypothesis, which posits that the relationship between age and alliance performance is nonlinear with alliance performance decreasing initially but increasing over time, is tested. It is proposed further here that alliances that are more important to the focal firm exhibit longer honeymoon periods. A measure of individual alliance performance is developed based on our field study in the biotechnology industry. The competing hypotheses are tested using regression analysis on the sample of 115 R&D alliances. Then the analysis is extended by splitting the sample into high‐ and low‐importance alliances to enhance the robustness of the findings. Further, such a split‐sample approach enables testing for a potential moderating effect of alliance importance on the hypothesized relationship between alliance age and alliance performance. The results suggest that the relationship between age and alliance performance seems to be U‐shaped curvilinear rather than linear, with the minimum point of alliance performance occurring after approximately four and one‐half years. Thus, the results indicate that strategic alliances appear to face a liability of adolescence rather than a liability of newness. Contrary to expectations, it also is found that important alliances exhibit generally shorter honeymoons.     

Joint pricing and inventory control for non-instantaneous deteriorating items with partial backlogging and time and price dependent demand

In this paper, a joint pricing and inventory control for non-instantaneous deteriorating items is developed. We adopt a price and time dependent demand function. Shortages is allowed and partially backlogged. The major objective is to determine the optimal selling price, the optimal replenishment schedule and the optimal order quantity simultaneously such that, the total profit is maximized. We first show that for any given selling price, optimal replenishment schedule exists and unique. Then, we show that the total profit is a concave function of price. Next, we present a simple algorithm to find the optimal solution. Finally, we solve a numerical example to illustrate the solution procedure and the algorithm.     

Technical efficiency and use of information and communication technology in Spanish firms

The literature concerned with the relationship between performance and information and communications technology (ICT) is usually focused on the ICT investments. This paper shows that it is the level of use of ICT within organisations, with preference as regards the expenses of ICT, which is responsible for the effect on performance. A general sample of 2255 Spanish companies has been used. Firms’ performance is measured as technical efficiency, which is determined by a data envelopment analysis (DEA), in which special attention is paid to the problem of the outliers. Finally, the analysis of the level of use of ICT is focused on a key area of the organisations, the supply chain, which affects the technical efficiency of the firms analysed. Results show that there is evidence of a positive effect of the use of ICT on technical efficiency. This effect is especially notable at intensive use levels in activities related to operations/manufacturing, purchasing or sales.     

Corporate strategy and the buying and selling of know-how

At this time, following a protracted period of recession, many companies have need to add to or change their technological base. For a company whose basic business is founded on a mature technology and unlikely to recover to its former level of activity, there is need to consider the transition process into a new area of development. For companies, on the other hand, whose businesses are inherently sound but now find themselves lagging behind technologically because of cut-backs and economies in their R&D spend during the recession, some process of catching up may be necessary. In either case, internal development is a possibility but, it is argued, unlikely to be able to act fast enough or to be of sufficient magnitude to make even catching up possible. The acquisition of know-how is an alternative course of action but one which companies can be loath to follow. These statements are supported by evidence on international comparisons of R&D expenditure, and on the national ratios of royalty payments and receipts in respect of know-how. The circumstances under which companies should consider such acquisition, and the strategic considerations guiding which know-how to purchase, are discussed.     

Access regulation and the incumbent investment in quality-upgrades and in cost-reduction

This papers studies if access price regulation has an impact on incumbents’ incentives to invest in their network that might differ according to the nature of investments, that is, quality-upgrading and cost-reducing. It is shown that if the marginal cost of quality-upgrading is very low both types of investment are increasing in the access price. If the marginal cost of cost-reducing is very low, both investments decrease after an increase in the access price. Otherwise, a high access price increases the incentives for quality-upgrading and reduces the incentives for cost-reducing. Therefore, regulators should set a higher access price the lower is the marginal cost of quality-upgrading as compared to the marginal cost of cost-reducing.     

Skill and Performance

It is popular to assume that there is a link between skill and performance, yet the evidence is tenuous. Both terms defy simple definition and much current work aggregates findings, conflating firms that compete on the basis of skill with those that do not. This article provides a detailed review of the difficulties involved. Skill may indeed contribute to performance on the shop floor but the performance of the organization as a whole is not the same as that of the shop‐floor writ large, while soft skills are difficult to assess and judgments may be contaminated by prejudice. It concludes with suggestions for better research designs that could capture this relationship.     

Flexibility and quality in logistics and relationships

This research focuses on supplier-buyer relationships in a distribution channel. It uses a contingency theory to claim that, under different environmental conditions, logistics flexibility and relationship flexibility for a focal firm (a manufacturer in this study) will have distinct effects on logistics service quality (when treated as a controllable mediator) and the firm's satisfaction in its relationship with its key downstream account. Using data from a survey of manufacturers in China, it uses structural equation modeling to test the main effects and moderated regression together with moderated path analysis to examine the contingent effects of environmental uncertainty. The results show that, as distinctive capabilities, both logistics flexibility and relationship flexibility have significant positive effects on the level of logistics service quality that the manufacturer offers, which, in turn, enhance how much it values and is satisfied with its relationship with its key account. However, the direct effect of logistics flexibility on relationship satisfaction is stronger under an uncertain environment, while the direct and total effect of relationship flexibility on relationship satisfaction is stronger under a stable environment.     

Processes and integration in the interaction of purchasing and marketing: Considering synergy and symbiosis

Effective integration of both purchasing and marketing functions is central to effective value creation and alignment of an organization with its business environment. Rapidly changing environments create gaps in the value creation process that compromises the delivery of value to the customer and risk misalignment of value propositions to their needs. Despite the clear imperative for research in this area, the extant literature is partial and delivers limited coherence. Ours is a theoretical article that—in drawing on previous literature—introduces the new work collected in this special issue and considers this against our own empirical evidence. We present a framework that maps out the landscape of internal organizational integration with a particular emphasis on purchasing and marketing integration. Implications for theory and managers are explored.     

Practical modelling and hypothesis testing in primary design and technology education

This article explores relationships between designing and making in the work of children within the age range 5–11 when engaged in practical modelling tasks. The notion of the model is explored from the perspective of concrete representations. It is suggested that concrete models may be used as hypotheses from which to test ideas about the nature of the world. From this perspective, models may be seen to provide crucial platforms for learning. A wide range of sources has informed the article, and these embrace ideas on Hypothesis Theory drawn from linguistic research, as well as historical sources which trace the evolution and development of stimuli for model-making activity. A creative basis for modelling is explored such that a conclusion is reached in which design is seen as an expression of the modelling of possibilities.     

国内外苯胺的供需市场分析

2003年世界苯胺生产能力约为3840kt／a，主要用于生产4，4，-二苯基甲烷二异氰酸酯(MDI)，国内苯胺生产能力约460kt／a，目前需求量约为340kt／a。文章分析了国内外苯胺消费现状，并对未来的发展作了预测，随着未来MDI的快速发展，消费结构调整加快。2006年我国苯胺生产能力将达到950kt／a，而总需求量预计为730～740kt，因此，建议我国苯胺企业尤其是中小型企业：(1)增加向周边国家出口苯胺及其下游产品；(2)适当扩大中小型苯胺装置的生产规模，并配套生产下游产品。     

Trust and Workplace Performance

Using European Company Survey data, this article explores the relationship between trust and establishment performance under works councils, on the one hand, and union bodies on the other. Trust is initially measured using the individual survey respondent's assessment of the ‘contribution’ of the other side. Although the rating of the employee representative is favoured over that of management as less subject to feedback from performance, the potential endogeneity of employee trust in management is also modelled. Next, a preferred inverse measure of trust (or dissonance) is constructed from the discrepancy between the assessments of the two sides of the quality of workplace industrial relations. Employee trust is associated throughout with improved establishment performance, and conversely for the dissonance counterpart. In their presence, neither type of workplace representation is superior to the other.     

GMS 2300型油气井无线防盗安全报警监控系统

GMS2300型油气井无线防盗安全报警监控系统是集多种油气井口防盗技术、易燃易爆与有毒气体的安全检测技术、生产参数的在线测量技术、基于GSM短消息的无线通信技术于一体的新型监控系统。介绍了该系统的工作原理、主要构成、设计思路、功能与技术特点等内容。     

Compatibility and Bundling with Generalist and Specialist Firms

I analyze compatibility and bundling choices when one generalist firm offering both components of a system competes against two specialist firms each supplying one component only (but not the same one). I show that the generalist firm may have an incentive to choose incompatibility or engage in pure bundling when one component is less differentiated than the other. In this case, the system is more differentiated than the relatively undifferentiated component, and so under incompatibility the specialist firm that produces the undifferentiated component will relax price competition. This may result in higher profits for some of the competing firms.     

Walter Adams and Chicago

Walter Adams is one of the strongest critics of the Chicago School of Economics. Yet he was trained at the University of Chicago. This article traces Adams' education in economics and delineates two distinct Chicago traditions of antitrust policy. Adams is linked to the earlier Chicago tradition of Henry Simons and, to some extent, Frank Knight. The consistency of Adams' policy views on antitrust is shown and the connection of these views to pragmatism and Jeffersonian precepts is argued.     

Variance amplification and the golden ratio in production and inventory control

A discrete linear control theory model of a generic model of a replenishment rule is presented. The replenishment rule, which we term a “Deziel Eilon—automatic pipeline, inventory and order-based production control system”, is guaranteed to be stable. From a z-transform model of the policy, an analytical expression for bullwhip is derived that is directly equivalent to the common statistical measure often used in simulation, statistical and empirical studies to quantify the bullwhip effect. This analytical expression clearly shows that we can reduce bullwhip by taking a fraction of the error between the target and actual inventory and pipeline (or work in progress (WIP) or “orders placed but not yet received”) positions. This is in contrast to the common situation where ordering policies account for all of the error every time an order is placed. Furthermore, increasing the average age of the forecast reduces bullwhip, as does reducing the production/distribution lead-time. We then derive an analytical expression for inventory variance using the same procedure to identify the closed form bullwhip expression.We assume that a suitable objective function is linearly related to the bullwhip and inventory variance amplification ratios and then optimise the PIC system for different weightings of order rate and inventory level variance. We highlight two forms of the objective function, one where “the golden ratio” can be used to determine the optimal gain in the inventory and WIP feedback loop and another that allows the complete range of possible solutions to be visualised. It is interesting that the golden ratio, which commonly describes the optimum behaviour in the natural world, also describes the optimal feedback gain in a production and inventory control system.     

绝对优势和比较优势的利益得失

斯密的绝对优势和李嘉图的比较优势令人信服地证明了国际分工和贸易给贸易双方带来的更大利益，但他们并没有对贸易产品的成本进行比较。本文紧接着斯密和李嘉图的思路，进一步探讨了国际贸易在增加贸易双方“产品利益”的同时贸易国的“成本利益”得失，认为基于绝对优势的国际分工和贸易产生的“成本利益”具有不确定性．而基于比较优势的国际分工和贸易带给先进国的“成本利益”一定为正．带给落后国的“成本利益”一定为负．并在此基础上分析了“产品利益”和“成本利益”背离的原因以及发展中国家为缩小与发达国家的经济差距而采取的应对措施。     

Inventor bricolage and firm technology research and development

We examine the conditions around firm use of 'inventor bricolage,' or the reconstruction of technological capabilities through reallocation of extant individual inventors to address new opportunities embodied in patents. Empirically, we examine the dynamics of both firm and individual patenting activity in publicly traded Life Science Diagnostic firms to explore how inventor bricolage is related to firms' existing research and development (R&D) capabilities and firms' acquisition of external capabilities through merger and acquisition (M&A) activities. Evidence at the firm level suggests that breadth of inventors' human capital and collaboration with co-researchers with relevant experience is positively related to inventor bricolage. At the inventor level, the fewer patents an inventor has, the broader the individual's prior patent portfolio, and the more co-researchers with relevant experience, the more likely inventors will patent in a new area. M&A does not appear to have an impact on the utilization of existing human capital. Our findings suggest that R&D managers should assign inventors with less assimilative capacity and more creative capacity in teams where there is relevant experience in order to promote inventor bricolage.