Open doors and open questions: interpreting the results of the 1998 ITU Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference

The 1998 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-98 in ITU jargon) took place in Minneapolis from 12 October to 6 November. As well as electing a new team of officials to lead the organization and establishing a financial envelope for the next four years, PP-98 faced two main issues. The first was to conclude the work begun at the 1992 Geneva Additional Plenipotentiary Conference by amending the ITU Constitution to give greater rights and responsibilities to the ITU’s private sector members. The second was to adopt strategic policies and plans to guide the Union into the 21st century. After first situating the Minneapolis conference in the context of the ITU’s unique organizational structure, culture and working methods, the paper describes the main results of the Minneapolis conference with respect to these two issues. It highlights constitutional amendments made which open the ITU to greater participation by the private sector, as well as to give non-governmental actors a greater role in providing advice and making decisions on technical issues. The paper then outlines the five strategies adopted by the conference to guide the activities of the Union in the next four years. In conclusion, it attempts to assess the principal challenges facing the ITU in terms of policy and organizational development.     

The sustainable growth model: A tool for evaluating the financial feasibility of market share strategies

Market share objectives constitute a key element of a firm's corporate strategy. Market share strategy decisions—to build, maintain, or harvest share—are generally based on a careful consideration of the long-term and short-term profitability and cash flow implications of such decisions. The product sales growth rate and capacity expansion implications of share building strategies, the sustainability of implied sales growth targets and its consistency with the established financial policies and objectives of the firm are the subject of this report. The sustainable growth model outlined provides a framework for evaluating the financial feasibility of sales growth objectives at the strategic business unit level and the firm level, from the standpoint of expected return on sales, investment requirements per dollar of sales, target capital structure and the dividend policy of the firm.     

The framing of innovation among European research funding actors: Assessing the potential for ‘responsible research and innovation’ in the food and health domain

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has recently emerged as a new framework for science and technology governance. The concept articulates the need for mutual exchange by which societal actors become responsive to each other early on in the process of innovation, with a view to facilitate ethically acceptable and sustainable innovation. There is relatively limited evidence to explore the extent to which the process of research and innovation under the terms of RRI is realised in practice, particularly in the context of food and health research. Although research to date has been examining innovation from the point of view of inputs and outputs—R&D funding and patents—we propose to examine the cognitive framing of innovation that shapes decisions of those who constitute a part of the innovation chain. This paper explores how the concept of innovation is understood and used in policy implementation, with a particular focus upon ‘food and health’ science and research policy and funding. Our analysis is based on 55 interviews of various actors engaged in research funding decision-making across eight European countries. Three themes emerged from the analysis: concept of innovation; conditions for innovation; and drivers of innovation; through these themes, the cognitive framing was drawn out. The cognitive framing suggests that innovation in the food and health domain is perceived to be focused on biosciences and marketable applications to the neglect of social sciences and broader public interest; that the “innovation network” is primarily viewed as centred around scientific/technical and industrial actors; and that the demand-pull dynamic is relevant to innovation in the area of food and health, despite having been relegated in contemporary thinking and policies around innovation. These findings point to the inadequate consideration of the normative issues—how problems are to be defined and addressed—among national research funders in the food and health domain, and indicate a gap between the ideas of innovation under the terms of RRI and innovation as conceptualised by those involved in its governance.     

The Political Economy of Occupational Family Policies: Comparing Workplaces in Britain and Germany

With a shift in the political debate to more market‐driven social policy approaches during the past decade, politicians in a number of European countries have argued that employers should take on greater responsibilities in the provision of social policy. But why should employers get involved? After reviewing the relevant literature on firm‐level social policy, we analyse the conditions and causal pathways that lead to their provision. Our findings show that (i) the skill structure and level of the workforce are important conditions for firm‐level engagement; (ii) employers have usually been the ‘protagonists’; (iii) the role of unions has been more limited — in Germany they can largely be characterized as ‘consenters’, whereas in Britain, their impact is negligible; (iv) in accordance with the specific systems of industrial relations, the design in Germany very much follows the concept of social partnership; in Britain the design is usually based on unilateral management decisions; and (v) based on these conditions and causal pathways, ‘enclave social policy’ is the likely result of the expansionary policy development, although in Germany, these policies have the potential of becoming an element of ‘industrial citizenship’.     

Introduction to Special Issue: Government Involvement in Residential Mortgage Markets

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Center for Real Estate Analytics and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's Center for Real Estate jointly sponsored a research conference held in Charlotte on December 5–6, 2013. The conference theme was “Government Involvement in Residential Mortgage Markets” and included papers and discussions from an array of economists employed in academia, government, think tanks and the private sector. This special issue of Real Estate Economics is composed of seven of the ten papers presented at the conference. The research is concentrated on the recent U.S. housing boom and bust, with a particular focus on the role of government policy.     

Market structure,capacity expansion,and pricing: A model applied to the Japanese iron and steel industry

The main objective of this paper is to study empirically the simultaneous and recursive relations between short-run pricing, capacity decision, and fluctuations in the elements of market structure. For this purpose, a time-series industry model was constructed and applied to the Japanese iron and steel industry for 1957–1975. The statistical results imply that over time industry market structure — especially seller concentration — might change endogenously in the system. The model also indicated that seller concentration as an element of market structure was a significant determinant of short-run domestic and export prices and also had a significant effect on the capacity decisions. These findings support the proposition that market structure affects market conduct at any moment in time while it is some degree shaped by past market conduct or behavior and structure.     

我国战略性新兴产业发展研究——中国工业经济学会2011年年会学术观点综述

本文对中国工业经济学会2011年年会暨中国战略性新兴产业发展研讨会的主要学术观点进行了综述,涉及宏观经济形势、工业发展与战略性新兴产业培育,战略性新兴产业发展的基础理论研究,产业政策与战略性新兴产业发展,技术创新与战略性新兴产业发展以及产业经济学理论前沿进展等内容,反映了当前战略性新兴产业发展研究以及产业经济学理论研究的最新进展。     

Does Competition Lead to Agglomeration or Dispersion in EMR Vendor Decisions?

We examine hospital Electronic Medical Record (EMR) vendor adoption patterns and how they relate to hospital market structure. As in many network technology adoption decisions, hospitals face countervailing incentives to coordinate or differentiate in their choice of vendors. We find evidence of substantial agglomeration on EMR vendors, which increases as hospital markets become more competitive. These findings suggest that incentives to coordinate dominate incentives to differentiate overall, and the relative balance grows stronger in favor of coordination as markets become more competitive. Our findings also have important implications regarding antitrust policy. A potential downside of hospital consolidation—increased obstacles in information sharing due to vendor differentiation—should be taken into account in evaluation of hospital mergers.     

Rejoinder : The mixed blessing of domestic support policies

This rejoinder notes the encouraging conclusion in the article by Tim Josling and Richard Barichello (p317–27),¹ that the impact of the policies followed for wheat by the world's main exporters has tended towards stabilizing world markets over the past twelve years. However, placing this conclusion in a wider context, the author believes that assuring world food security will remain dependent on support policy decisions taken for domestic policy reasons and that developed country domestic support policies have had a mixed effect for world markets.     

An analysis of decision processes

This paper outlines three ways of looking at decision processes, and relates them to problems of research management. A classification of decisions is suggested, based on three dimensions of complexity. On each dimension, innovative decisions are normally more complex than operating decisions, but since the latter are more common, there is a danger that the former will be inadequately treated, as shown in an example. These dangers may be mitigated, first, by regarding complex decision-making as an explicitly cyclical process, and, second, by recognizing the significance of reference standards. Four types of reference standard—historical, external, planning, and imaginative—are noted, and brief consideration is given to their origins and to their influence on the perception not only of problems but also of solutions. It is argued that the range and quality of the reference standards used are likely to be significant factors in the success of research management.     

Making office automation work

The increasing proliferation of electronic media and sophisticated communications virtually ensures that we will be inundated with a sea of information. Management of that information — processing, storing, retrieving, and transmitting it — will be our most formidable challenge. The office, as the hub of an organization, is where decisions and policies are made. The office must facilitate information flow throughout the organization; and the means to perform this task efficiently lie in automation — automation which takes into consideration the people-orientation of the office.     

Robust analogizing and the outside view: two empirical tests of case‐based decision making

Executives use analogies to improve strategic decisions. However, existing research provides little guidance on the types and number of analogies that produce the best decisions. We examine models of analogy and present findings from two empirical tests. The first test, a study of private‐equity investment decisions, finds that an ‘outside view’—forming a reference class of analogies—performs better than a few analogies familiar to the decision maker. The second test, a study of film revenue forecasts, compares a new model we call similarity‐based forecasting (SBF) with existing methods. The study finds that SBF, which combines elements of reference class forecasting and case‐based decision making, produces better forecasts than regression models. We discuss the consequences of our findings for research and practice. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring pupils’ beliefs about designers and designing

The purpose of this paper is to report on an investigation into pupil beliefs about designers and designing conducted as part of a research project focussing on Designerly Activity in Secondary Design and Technology which builds upon a pilot study (Barlex and Trebell in Int J Technol Design Educ, 2007). Four research questions drove this element of the study: (a) What do pupils believe designers do? (b) What do pupils believe about the knowledge and skills designers must possess? (c) What do pupils believe designers are like? (d) What do pupils believe about the design decisions made by the designer of a given product? This paper compliments the work of Welch et al. (Designing the future: The design and technology association international research conference 2006, University of Wolverhampton, Telford, 2006) relating to student beliefs about designers and designing by drawing on some elements of the research design to inform this study. Pupil responses to questions relating to the role of the designer, what designers are like and what designers need to know are in line with the findings of Welch et al. (Designing the future: The design and technology association international research conference 2006, University of Wolverhampton, Telford, 2006) in their study of elementary students beliefs about designers and designing with both studies concluding that the qualities ascribed to the designer are positive and non-stereotypical—they can be young or old, female or male.     

Merger Control Policy Under China’s Anti-Monopoly Law

China??s merger policy and enforcement approaches since its Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) took effect in August 2008 are by and large based on the same conceptual framework that is employed in advanced economies. While China has shown a very fast learning capability in conducting competition analysis, further capacity building in China is crucial. There is no clear evidence of industrial policy considerations being at the forefront in the eight published decisions by the Ministry of Commerce to date, except for its very early decisions. We propose a competition-neutral principle, which requires that a competition test be conducted before, and independently from, any consideration of industrial policy and argue that industrial policy matters only for competition-neutral mergers. On a more technical level, if China adopts the total welfare standard, then its treatment of efficiencies and the meaning of sufficiency of entry post merger should be modified accordingly from the US/EU consumer-oriented model.     

Competition Policy and Trade Barriers: Empirical Evidence from China

This paper examines the impact of competition policy on inter-regional trade barriers among provinces in China. Using data from 28 Chinese provinces for the period 1994–2013, we show that the implementation of competition policy—as measured by a number of indices that we construct—can effectively reduce inter-regional trade barriers. We provide results that are based on both fixed effects and instrumental variables estimators to support the causal nature of the established link. The effect is found to be more salient for provinces with a less corrupt political environment. The results are also shown to be robust across alternative specifications, alternative measures of competition policy, and inter-regional trade barriers.

     

The Year 2005 at DG Competition: The Trend towards a More Effects-Based Approach

This first review of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition (DG COMP) gives an overview on DG COMP’s mandate and the main developments of 2005. The discussion includes institutional and policy developments, as well as the main competition policy decisions and Court judgments in the merger, antitrust, and state aid areas. It is argued that the trend towards a more effects-based analysis in EU competition policy had an impact on the assessment of competition cases, as well as on the development of soft law. For example, the effects-based approach was put high on the agenda with the publication of the Article 82 discussion paper. Similarly, the publication of the State Aids Action Plan (SAAP) launched a “more economic approach” in European state aid assessment. In line with its objective to focus resources on key sectors, two major inquiries were launched in the energy and financial sectors.The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not in any way represent an official position of the European Commission. Until 1 September 2006, Lars-Hendrik Roeller was the Chief Economist at DG Competition. He is now the President of the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin and a Professor at Humboldt University.     

Political capabilities,policy risk,and international investment strategy: evidence from the global electric power generation industry

Whereas conventional wisdom holds that multinational enterprises (MNEs) invest less in host countries that pose greater policy risk—the risk that a government will opportunistically alter policies to expropriate an investing firm's profits or assets—we argue that MNEs vary in their response to host‐country policy risk as a result of differences in organizational capabilities for assessing such risk and managing the policy‐making process. We hypothesize that firms from home countries characterized by weaker institutional constraints on policy makers or greater redistributive pressures associated with political rent seeking will be less sensitive to host‐country policy risk in their international expansion strategies. Moreover, firms from home countries characterized by sufficiently weak institutional constraints or sufficiently strong redistributive pressures will seek out riskier host countries for their international investments to leverage their political capabilities, which permit them to attain and defend attractive positions or industry structures. We find support for our hypotheses in a statistical analysis of the foreign direct investment location choices of MNEs in the electric power generation industry during the period 1990–1999, the industry's first decade of internationalization. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Increase your divestment effectiveness

In many large diversified corporations there is a largely prevalent habit to consider divestment decisions as ‘top secret’: information concerning potential divestitures is restricted to top management and only a handful of senior managers are involved in the decision making process. The major assumption underlying such behaviour is the fear of failure; that is, top management is concerned about involving line—generally divisional—managers in the process of making up one's mind to divest (a time consuming process as will be seen later) and searching a potential acquirer, in the fear that such involvement might work in counteractive ways and perhaps cause the abortion of the project. As a result, information is most often withheld, decisions in progress are kept secret; an ‘underground’ strategy is developed. The purpose of this article is to show that the most successful divestments are precisely those where line management's co-operation has been elicited at very early stages and to suggest that such a participative management mode is likely to produce better results. Our research, based on the study of 14 divestments in the US and Europe (see Appendix), thus shows that the division manager is a key person on the divestment chess-board and accomplishes varied missions.     

On the Consistency of Merger Policy

This paper presents a way to get around the information problem facing outside analysts who want to scrutinize competition authorities' decisions. A formal model of how decisions are taken is applied to infer information that is available to the authorities but not to the outside analyst. If the information thus inferred from several decisions is incompatible, it is claimed that the policy executed by the competition authorities is inconsistent. A case study is presented of two recent decisions by the Norwegian Competition Authority on proposed mergers in the Norwegian insurance industry, indicating they most likely were mutually inconsistent.     

Strategies of Innovation and Imitation of Product Languages*

Nowadays, design is recognized as a strategic resource. Customers are increasingly paying attention to the aesthetic, symbolic, and emotional value of products, a value that is conveyed by the design language—that is, the combination of signs (e.g., form, colors, materials) that gives meaning to a product. As a consequence firms are devoting increasing efforts to define a proper strategy for the design language of their products. An empirical analysis was conducted on the product language strategies in the Italian furniture industry; in particular, the present article explores the relationship between innovation and variety of product languages. Companies are usually faced by two major strategic decisions. The first one concerns the innovation of product languages: To what extent should a firm proactively propose new design languages or, rather, should adopt a reactive strategy by rapidly adopting new languages as they emerge in the market? The second decision concerns the variety and heterogeneity of languages in their product range. Should a firm propose a single product language to communicate a precise identity, or should it explore different product languages? Of course, the two strategic decisions—innovativeness and variety of product languages—are closed connected. Analyzing more than 2.000 products launched by 210 firms, the present article explores how the variety of product languages is approached in the strategy of innovators and imitators. The empirical results illustrate an inverse relationship between innovativeness and heterogeneity of product signs and languages. Contrary to what is expected, innovators have lower heterogeneity of product languages. They tend to be strongly proactive and limit experimentations of new languages in the market. Imitators, instead—which would be expected to have low variety since they can invest only in languages that have been proven successful in the market—tend on the contrary to have higher product variety. Eventually, by having lower investments in research on trends of sociocultural models, they miss the capability to interpret the complex evolution of products signs and languages in the market. Strategic decisions on innovativeness and variety of product languages are therefore interrelated; counterintuitively companies should carefully analyze these decisions jointly.