Performance impacts of interorganizational cooperation: a transaction cost perspective

This study builds on the transaction cost theory to examine the performance effects of interorganizational cooperation and develops an understanding of how different forms of cooperative relationships affect organizational performance within a major service sector, namely the healthcare industry. The authors study, in particular, two cooperative forms applied to hospitals: hospital-based health networks and health systems. An empirical investigation of 382 hospitals in Taiwan shows that interorganizational cooperation exerts positive effects on hospital performance. In addition, health systems have greater positive effects on hospital efficiency than health networks. Furthermore, this study finds that the positive impact of participation in health systems is especially significant for private hospitals, local community hospitals, and hospitals in highly competitive regions. The findings reveal that performance impacts of interorganizational cooperation are contingent on the cooperative arrangements in the healthcare industry.     

Assessing new empirical industrial organization (NEIO) methods: The cases of five industries

The methods proposed in the new empirical industrial organization (NEIO) literature have made significant contributions to our understanding of competitive behavior. However, these methods have yet to be compared with each other for their performance in explaining and diagnosing competitive market conduct. This inter-method comparison is important because conclusions about competitive behavior based on these methods have significant strategic as well as policy implications for firms. Our objective in this paper is to examine the performance of these different NEIO methods in terms of their discriminatory power, ability to identify strategic variables, and robustness in estimation. For empirical demonstration, we use data from diverse industries such as microprocessors, personal computers, facial tissue, disposable diapers and automobiles. Our results suggest that two commonly used NEIO methods-conjectural variation and non-nested model comparison-exhibit quite good convergence with each other and are consistent with a traditional time series method. This suggests that simpler methods such as conjectural variations deserve more credit. We also find that using these methods in tandem provides valuable additional information that may not be available when using any one method alone. While the emphasis in this study is on comparing different methods of analyzing competitive interaction, the findings also reveal some substantive insights about each market studied.     

外资并购对中国企业产能利用率的影响

改革开放40年来,中国外资并购频繁发生,对经济增长做出了积极的贡献。然而伴随中国经济的高速发展,产能过剩问题日益凸显。本文基于1998—2007年中国企业数据,采用PSM-DID方法系统地研究了外资并购对中国企业产能利用率的影响及作用机制。实证结果表明,外资并购显著促进了企业产能利用率的提高;影响机制检验发现,出口扩张、研发创新和生产效率是外资并购提升企业产能利用率的重要途径;进一步的动态效应估计显示,外资并购后五年内对企业产能利用率具有显著的促进作用,且该效应呈"倒U型"动态变化特征。此外,本文还考察了外资并购对企业产能利用率的异质性影响,发现外资并购对内陆地区企业、高资本密集度企业和高融资约束企业产能利用率提高的促进作用更大。本文最后采用面板分位数回归方法检验了外资并购的产能利用率效应在不同产能水平企业之间的差异性,发现外资并购在更大程度上提升了落后产能企业的产能利用率。以上研究意味着,外资并购有助于缩小企业间产能利用率差距,这对于减少社会资源浪费、提高资源配置效率以及推动产业结构转型升级具有重要的作用。     

Unrestricted Entry and Nonprice Competition: The Case of Technological Adoption in Hospitals

Medical technology adoption is a major contributor to rising health care expenditures in the US. Multiple market failures provide incentives for hospitals to adopt technologies. Unrestricted entry may result in excess capacity and reductions in output that are inefficient with respect to cost and quality. We analyze the effects of hospital entry in the market for coronary artery bypass graft surgery on the number of procedures performed at both the market and firm levels, using California data from 1983 to 1990. We test the hypothesis that entry has differential effects on hospital output in a market with nonprice competition, depending on market structure. Results show that as the proximity of the nearest competitor increases with entry, hospital output declines. Holding distance to the nearest competitor constant, increasing the number of competitors results in a smaller, but still significant, decrease in output. When there are few incumbents nearby, however, output does not change significantly with entry, suggesting "business-augmenting" effects that result in increased physician referrals offset much of the conventional "businessstealing" effects.     

Participation in export and Chinese firms’ capacity utilization

This paper first sets up a firm heterogeneity trade model and shows that given capital stock and productivity, export firms will have higher rates of capacity utilization. In addition, given capital stock and fixed export costs, firms with higher productivity are more likely to export. I then use the 2012 Chinese enterprise survey from the World Bank to empirically investigate the impact of participation in export on Chinese firms’ capacity utilization rate. The results show that on average, export firms have capacity utilization rate 1.55–2.01 percent higher than non-export firms, which amounts to 14.6–18.9 percent of the standard deviation of capacity utilization rate in the sample. I also find that firms with a larger part of shares owned by the government have lower capacity utilization. Stronger market competition leads to over-investment and therefore lower capacity utilization rate. Faced with more rigorous labor market regulation, firms will substitute capital for the use of labor, resulting in higher capacity utilization rate.     

Pioneers and followers: Competitive tactics,environment, and firm growth

Market pioneering—where a firm is first to offer a distinctively new product to the market—is a commonly recognized form of corporate entrepreneurship. As with other forms of corporate entrepreneurship, the linkage between market pioneering and firm performance has received limited empirical attention, much of which has yielded inconsistent results. Nonetheless, two conclusions regarding when and how pioneering relates to firm performance are revealed in the literature. First, theory and past research suggest that pioneering is an environment-specific phenomenon. That is, certain types of environments may be most likely to encourage or reward the actions of pioneers, while these same actions may meet with limited success in other environments. Second, theory and past research suggest that firm performance is affected by the fit between a firm's pioneer/follower status and its competitive tactics. In other words, market entry order moderates the effectiveness of a firm's competitive tactics such that certain tactics will be most effective when employed by market pioneers, while other tactics will be most effective when employed by market followers.Considered jointly, the preceding observations suggest that insights might be gained regarding the effective management of market pioneering and market following by seeking to understand (a) how these phenomena are manifested in different industry environments and (b) what pioneers and followers do differently in these environments to promote their performance. The research described in this paper addresses these issues. In particular, this paper develops theory that describes how particular competitive tactics are thought to relate to firm sales growth rate among market pioneers and market followers in two distinct environmental settings. Hypotheses are developed based on the following research propositions:P1: In hostile environments, pioneers and followers will differentially benefit in achieving high sales growth rates from their reliance on relatively high prices, relatively broad product lines, relatively broad served (geographical) markets, relatively advanced process technologies, and relatively advantageous purchasing arrangements.P2: In benign environments, pioneers and followers will differentially benefit in achieving high sales growth rates from their reliance on relatively high quality products, relatively strong product warranties, relatively high advertising and promotion expenditures, relatively strong control over distribution channels employed, and relatively large numbers of distribution channels employed.To test the hypothesized relationships, data were collected from the senior managers of 103 independent, nondiversified manufacturing firms operating in 75 industries. Cluster analysis, ANOVA, and correlational analysis were employed as the principal analytical techniques.The results suggest that market pioneers grow neither more nor less rapidly than market followers. However, in hostile environments, pioneering may enable firms to break out of the dominant price-based mode of competition and grow in spite of charging high prices. This ability of pioneers to excel in hostile environments seems to be further facilitated by limiting product line breath to a small number of product offerings that provide a “tight fit” with market needs. Pioneers in hostile environments also appear to be relatively better served than followers from gaining a wide geographical distribution for their products. Followers in hostile environments, on the other hand, should seek to reduce their cost structures in order to effectively sustain low price strategies. The employment of advanced process technologies and the pursuit of “purchasing advantages” were actions which proved to be more advantageous for followers than for pioneers in hostile environments.The managerial implications of this research applicable to benign environment firms are quite different. Other things being equal, relatively high prices may not be as detrimental to growth among followers in benign environments as they are among followers in more hostile environments. Benign environment followers may, in fact, be better off when they charge relatively high prices and compete on non-price bases. The results also suggest that, in benign environments, offering products with warranties superior to those of competitors may have a significantly more positive effect on sales growth among pioneers than followers. Moreover, employing a large number of distribution channels appears to benefit pioneers more than followers. However, among the sampled firms, benign environment pioneers that realized the greatest growth did not have extensive control over distribution channel members. Therefore, benign environment pioneers may grow more quickly if they target their distribution-related resources toward expanding their channels rather than toward controlling some smaller number these channels.This study contributes to the pioneering literature by having corroborated several findings of the PIMS-based studies regarding tactical differences between pioneers and followers, and by having further documented the relevance of market entry order (or pioneer/follower status) as a moderator of the performance associated with particular competitive tactics. Moreover, by having examined the tactics-performance relationships of pioneers and followers in two distinct environmental settings, this study adds specificity and empirical support to the emerging theoretical paradigm that depicts pioneering as an environment-specific phenomenon. Finally, this study contributes to the literature on coping with hostility by having theorized about and empirically identified common and effective bases for competition under varying levels of environmental hostility.     

Differentiation through Service: A Perspective from the Commodity Chemicals Sector

This article examines the role of service as a differentiating factor in the marketing of commodity chemicals. The commodity chemicals sector is characterised by high volume products that are fundamentally undifferentiable by product characteristics, made to an industrial standard often produced with a technology that is common amongst competing producers, with high exit cost due as a result of extensive capital investment. In addition many segments of the market exhibit excess supply over demand. The research, based on an empirical study of companies in the sector and their supply chain relationships, suggests that service and relationship management are key strategies used by companies to escape the commodity trap and gain competitive advantage. The results of the study are discussed in the context of the services marketing continuum and using the servitisation model. The implications of the findings are that, if firms in this sector wish to break out of the commodity trap of blind allegiance to cost leadership as a generic strategy, then they must seek methods of differentiation. The article concludes that a servitisation strategy placed in the context of relationship management can be a means of creating differentiation advantage in a traditionally cost orientated sector     

Capacity inefficiencies of teaching and non-teaching hospitals

This paper investigates capacity-based inefficiency causes and the existence of any differences between the improvement processes of teaching and non-teaching hospitals. In an effort to comparatively evaluate the inefficiency causes of hospitals in Turkey, this study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA can simultaneously assess the relationship between capacity (physical capacity and medical labor capacity) as inputs and the utilization of capacity (utilization of institution capacity for patients, utilization of physical capacity, and utilization of technological capacity) as outputs. In addition, the Malmquist productivity index (MPI) is used to analyze the patterns of efficiency change for the study years from 2001 to 2007. Several improvement suggestions have been provided to health care policy makers regarding inefficiency causes and ways of optimizing hospital efficiency.     

Industrial Organization of Banking: A Review

Empirical research about structure, conduct and performance in banking markets has developed mostly independently from the microeconomic theory of banking. The present paper reviews the literature by focusing on the links between theoretical and empirical research. It considers basic conditions, variables of market structure, conduct and performance and public policy special to the banking industry. It is shown that the competitive conditions are different in different market segments, and that the trend towards universal banks which are active in different geographic markets gives new challenges to research.     

Retail environment and manufacturer competitive intensity

We study how the intensity of competition and the degree to which manufacturers enjoy market power depends on the retail environment in a given market. Past research has discussed the growing importance of retailers and the power they enjoy over manufacturers. Yet, the empirical literature to date has not determined which retail characteristics have the largest impact on competitive behavior.Our starting point is the estimation of a structural demand-and-supply model, where both consumers’ decisions and the strategic interactions between manufacturers and retailers are explicitly modeled. We identify the type of competitive behavior of manufacturers by measuring the deviation from a Bertrand-Nash equilibrium. This measure of competitive conduct is expressed as a function of key retail characteristics such as size of the retailer, its assortment depth, and category expertise.We illustrate the proposed approach using data for the ground coffee category in Germany. Our findings indicate that retail characteristics have indeed a significant effect on competitive intensity among upstream firms and on their ability to exercise market power. Hence, a manufacturer considering entry into a new market should not only take into account its competitors but also the specifics of the retail environment in this market.     

Understanding reserve volatility in emerging markets: a look at the long-run

In this paper, we examine long-run determinants of cross-country variation in reserve volatility for 30 emerging market economies from 1973 to 2000. Reserve holdings and openness are found to be the most important explanatory variables of reserve volatility. The empirical results are robust for a range of control variables, including monetary variables, the degree of financial development, and the level of indebtedness. We view these results as establishing interesting stylized facts that may be helpful in evaluating reserve volatility as a crisis indicator.     

Category Captain Management: a new approach for healthcare suppliers to partner with their hospital customers

Hospitals represent a substantial market for pharmaceutical and medical device companies. The typical approach by healthcare manufacturers and suppliers to hospitals is to send representatives or detailers to hospitals and meet with representatives of hospital formularies and purchasing officials. Classic channels systems, and specifically, Category Captain Management ("CCM") may provide more of a sustainable competitive advantage than traditional hospital detailing. The purpose of this article is to discuss how CCM might apply as an approach for healthcare suppliers to truly partner with their hospital customers.     

The Effects of Market Concentration and Horizontal Mergers on Hospital Costs and Prices

Antitrust advocates believe that horizontal consolidation in hospital markets can reduce competition and increase prices while merger advocates believe it can benefit consumers by reducing service duplication. This study analyzed the market conditions, operating characteristics, and costs and prices of approximately 3500 short-term general hospitals (including 112 within-market-area mergers) from 1986 to 1994 to investigate the effects of market concentration, hospital mergers, and managed care penetration. The results show: a shift away from non-price competition toward price competition in health care markets; that this shift was fueled by increased market penetration by price-sensitive buyers; that horizontal hospital mergers produced average cost savings of approximately 5%, which were generally passed on to consumers as lower prices; that cost savings were generally greater for mergers of similar-size hospitals, with a higher degree of duplicative services, and with lower pre-merger occupancy rates; and some evidence that post-merger price reductions were smaller in less-competitive markets.     

Emerging market multinational companies’ evolutionary paths to building a competitive advantage from emerging markets to developed countries

One significant emerging phenomenon of global competition is the increasing number of Emerging Market Multinational Companies (EMNCs) that have survived and succeeded in the constraining institutional environments in their home turfs and are now participating in the global marketplace. However, despite the growing literature, our understanding of the factors that influence EMNCs’ competitive advantage is limited. We conduct a historical longitudinal analysis of sixteen companies originating from key emerging markets viz. India and China. Our findings suggest that EMNCs’ evolutionary paths to building competitive advantage from their home market to the developed countries is, on one-hand, based on the EMNCs’ ability to acquire resources and absorb them to build their own advantage. On the other hand, it is also based on EMNCs’ ability to find new market niches and to enhance their innovation capabilities to overcome the liability of emergingness.     

Hospital Positioning and Integrated Hospital Marketing Communications: State-of-the-Art Review,Conceptual Framework,and Research Agenda

In the light of patient empowerment and channel fragmentation, hospitals struggle to target patients in their new role as active, knowledgeable consumers. As market differentiation via traditional marketing mix variables such as price is hardly achievable in healthcare, superior communication grounded on sound positioning is a more promising lever for competitive advantage. Yet, research on marketing-driven communication from provider to patient lacks synthesis and critical reflection. Drawing upon evidence from previous research, this article unites 62 articles from medical and social sciences covering aspects of hospital marketing communications. Derived from qualitative content analysis, findings on the effectiveness of specific communication channels and contents are portrayed. This article further uncovers the characteristics of four evolving archetypes for hospital positioning and illustrates the implementation of integrated hospital marketing communication strategy. The elaborated conceptual framework can be used as a managerial tool for tailoring hospital communications. The article closes by highlighting future research directives.     

Are Market Orientation and Learning Orientation Necessary for Superior Organizational Performance?

There exists contradictory theoretical arguments and counter-intuitive empirical results regarding the market orientation, learning orientation and organizational performance nexus. We ask, can we simplify relations in this nexus? This study analyzes data from Australian organisations and employs non-nested encompassing tests. Contrary to recent findings extolling the virtues of a learning orientation, our results suggest that a market orientation may be the pre-eminent strategy to achieve superior organizational performance.     

卫生院科室成本核算方法研究

长期以来,我国乡镇一级卫生院的经济效益不是很高,这与卫生院科室成本核算有很大的关系.尤其是随着市场经济的不断深入和发展,传统的科室成本核算方法已经难以适应现代卫生院发展的需要.因此,要想提高卫生院的经济管理水平,我们必须对卫生院各科室的收支状况、预算执行情况等进行系统、全面的反映,这使得卫生院各科室的成本如何核算,采取何种方法进行核算就显得特别重要,本文将对此进行重点论述.     

Customer Lifetime Value: Empirical Generalizations and Some Conceptual Questions

From the extant literature on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), we identify four empirical generalizations (well-defined, consistent effects found by at least three different sets of authors): customer satisfaction, marketing efforts, cross-buying and multichannel purchasing all have positive relationships with CLV. The frequency and monetary value of previous purchases generally have a positive effect on CLV, although there are some contradictory findings in this regard. We identify additional issues that have received limited attention in the literature, but require further empirical study: the effects of pricing, earned rewards and promotions on CLV, managing a sequence of contacts to maximize response rates and CLV, and whether CLV can be forecasted sufficiently accurately. We also discuss additional conceptual issues that merit further research.     

The problem of attaining an efficient capital stock

Serious problems exist with the nature of health care financing in the United States. This article summarizes problems caused by the high cost of serving an aging population, the lack of incentives in insurance plans for preventive care, and the growing number of uninsured people in the population. The article then focuses on efforts to bring about greater efficiency by changing the contractual relations between the principal--either the payor or the patient--and the agent--the provider. These new contracts attempt to place a greater share of the financial burden on the provider. Evidence of the success of these new contracts is mixed. The major point of the article is that real efficiencies will not be reached unless these incentive mechanisms together with competitive market forces relieve the excess capacity in the health care industry.     

The effect of prospective payment under DRGs on the market value of hospitals

This article investigates the effect of a change in Medicare payment regulations on for-profit hospital market values. A theoretical argument on the effects of this regulatory event is presented in which hospital managers are concerned about firm wealth but also value prestige, provider perceptions of quality, and perhaps other prerequisites. In this case, DRGs will induce hospitals to seek higher wealth because they increase the opportunity cost of nonpecuniary benefits. The issue is pursued empirically by estimating the market response to DRG legislation using seemingly unrelated regressions.