Examining critical and near-critical paths: an Excel-based classroom exercise

The author’s goals in this exercise were to use an Excel project to teach students about the effects of changing states of nature on critical path emergence as well as compare the impact of the PERT beta and triangular distributions on project completion times. Previous research into the PERT (program evaluation and review technique) beta distribution indicated a tendency for this distribution to overstate the impact of the dominant critical path on project completion times. The author used a Monte Carlo simulation and a new Excel function to explore the effects of random variation on critical path emergence. He used both the triangular distribution and the PERT beta distribution to calculate project completion times. The author found that three of the possible five paths became critical in both the PERT beta and triangular distributions. However, the triangular distribution moderated the PERT beta distribution’s tendency toward the dominate critical path.     

基于社会资本的产业集群交易治理研究——交易域、交易频率及交易对象视角的分析

文章研究了社会资本对于产业集群内部企业间交易的治理机制,从交易域、交易频率、交易对象这三个维度,对匿名市场现货交易进行扩展,建立了基于社会资本的交易治理模型,分析了产业集群内企业进行交易时的主要特点：交易嵌入社会网络、交易频率高、主要与集群内部交易对象进行交易。依据这三个特点,将上述模型进行综合,得出适用于产业集群内部企业间交易的社会资本治理机制模型,并分析了该模型的适用条件。研究结果显示由于社会资本的存在,使得产业集群内部交易得到了有效治理,这种有效治理的水平受到产业集群规模和信息畅通水平的约束,当产业集群规模不大、存在通畅的信息沟通渠道、交易者存在实施集体惩罚的动力时,社会资本能够成为产业集群内部企业间交易的有效治理机制,但是这种机制并不适用于集群内部企业与外部企业间的交易治理。     

供应链金融解困中小企业融资难的优势分析

中小企业在扩大就业、活跃市场、稳定社会和国民经济结构布局等方面起着难以替代的作用,中小企业融资难问题已经成为限制中小企业发展的一个最重要的因素。运用银企信贷动态博弈模型理论,本文认为降低银企交易成本和实施有效的动产质押是解决中小企业融资难的有效路径,作为一种全新金融服务创新模式,供应链金融在解困中小企业融资难方面具有的重要作用。     

The effect of service quality on trust and commitment varying across generations

We examine the effect of service quality on consumer trust and commitment in the context of obtaining a financial loan and how these relationships vary across different generational cohorts. We find that the service quality offered by a loan officer has a significant effect on consumer trust towards a financial institution, which in turn influences consumer commitment to a financial institution for a future transaction. We also find that relative strengths of a few paths in the model differ across different age cohorts, indicating some generational variability in the relationship between service quality, trust and commitment.     

家族涉入、网络结构与家族企业的网络交易成本

文章利用浙江和重庆两地制造业家族企业的调查数据,实证检验了家族涉入对家族企业降低网络交易成本的影响及网络结构的中介效应,研究结果表明：（1）家族所有权、家族承诺对家族企业降低网络交易成本有显著的正向影响,领导企业的家族代数对家族企业降低网络交易成本有显著的负向影响;（2）网络中心度和密度在家族承诺与降低网络交易成本之间起部分中介作用。本文的研究结论对于提高我国家族企业网络组织效率具有一定的现实意义。     

A short-run analysis of the effects of portfolio realignments due to money market innovations

This paper develops a model of the financial sector that includes two highly liquid assets. These assets can be utilized as transaction balances, one of which pays a market determined rate of interest. The paper relates several recent money market innovations to this analytic framework. The model is then used to examine the effects on interest rates and monetary aggregates of a shift into the interest paying transaction asset. These effects are found to be highly dependent on the strategy of monetary control pursued by the central bank.     

Applying complexity theory to explain partner cooperation: The role of transaction cost‐related factors and elements of relational exchanges

Using complexity theory, we seek to better understand the configurations of causal factors stimulating joint ventures' cooperation in Chinese manufacturing context. To this end, we adopt two dominant perspectives of transaction cost economics and relational exchange theory to identify transaction cost‐related factors and elements of relational exchanges as critical factors in joint ventures' cooperation. We apply fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis on a sample of 268 joint venture partners to test research propositions. The findings indicate a need for competence trust and goodwill trust and also show that extorting rent cost should be emphasized. Results reveal those six configurations of causal factors that explain high intention to cooperate. Copyright © 2017 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of the Internet on free-riding: An exploratory study of the wallpaper industry

This study discusses the role of the Internet on possible free-riding activities for product categories where retail services are a critical part of the completed consumer purchase transaction. The study investigates free-riding in terms of consumer pre-purchase activities during the information search stage (how they process shopping information) and actual purchase decisions with a literature review. The study's empirical findings indicate that full-service retailers’ beliefs about online consumers’ choice of purchase outlet are predominantly influenced by online retailer prices rather than availability of a variety of products (place) on the Internet. This, in turn, indicates the possibility of strong free-riding opportunities in the sample wallpaper market. The study, in this context, proposes strategies and policies to eliminate many of the destructive effects of the opportunities for free-riding provided by the Internet for long-lasting channel and market effectiveness and efficiency.     

Some Transaction Cost Effects of Authoritarian Management

This paper studies the transaction cost economizing effects of authoritarian management in organizations and systems subject to higher transaction costs originating from various sources. We analyze the nature, mechanisms, and transaction cost aspects of the authoritarian management style. We argue that the higher the transaction costs of internal organization, the more autocratic the manager is likely to be. We discuss the features of authoritarian managers, illustrating some of our key hypotheses with the example of Henry Ford and his running of the Ford Motor Company. In the context of non-market economies, we relate authoritarian leadership to economic centralism in high transaction cost systems such as East European societies with significant transactional or organizational opportunism, as well as other sources of market failure.     

Rapid internationalization and exit of exporters: The role of digital platforms

Digital platforms have been developing fast which transform the benefits and costs of rapid internationalization of firms on them. Employing transaction cost economics perspective, we argue that the transaction attributes of asset specificity, transaction uncertainty, and transaction frequency, have all changed fundamentally in digital platform-based transactions. They render the organizational learning in rapid Internet exporting to counterbalance the diseconomies of time compression caused by the lack of organizational absorptive capacity. By using the three attributes as underlying mechanisms, we hypothesize that the expansion speed of exporters on digital platforms reduces exit hazards of the exporters. We further hypothesize that digital signals on product quality strengthen the main effect. As for digital infrastructure, we recognize its competing effects and make curvilinear moderating hypotheses. Survival analyses based on 353,636 entries of real transaction records from a digital exporting platform have provided robust findings. This study highlights the importance of examining how the digital platform reshapes the transaction attributes and internationalization-performance relationship.     

Vertical integration in production and services: development in transaction cost economics

In this paper, we first establish the core, fundamental concepts of Williamson’s TCE, examining the different governance structures or the institutional alternatives that TCE theory proposes. We go on to describe some critical considerations and theoretical proposals that correspond fundamentally to Williamson’s heuristic model, the integration of incentives in organizational forms, idiosyncratic demand, and how the concept of transaction is conceived in general.     

Firm size effects on transaction costs

Associated with effects of scale, scope, experience and learning there are effects of firm size on transaction costs; in the stages of contact, contract and control. These effects are due to threshold costs in setting up contacts, contracts and governance schemes, and to differences with respect to the factors that cause transaction costs: bounded rationality, opportunism, uncertainty and transaction specificity of assets. Implications are considered for firm strategy and public policy.     

中国上市公司内外融资的顺序偏好

文章指出,对中国上市公司中的股份异质公司而言,若不考虑关联交易因素,内源融资逊色于外源融资,其所偏爱的股利政策为现金分红,这意味着中国证券监督管理委员会将现金分红作为上市公司申请配股或增发先决条件的现行规定可能并不妥当,加强对上市公司关联交易的监管才是问题的根本。在有报告盈余的情况下,这类公司会趋向于大规模派发现金股利,除非其报告盈余存在虚假或日后存在向其控股股东输送利润的可能,因此投资者及相关政府部门可利用这一特性低成本地甄别其企业会计报表的真伪及未来发生非对等关联交易的可能性。     

Selection of International Marketing Channels

This paper discusses channel selection in international markets. After positioning the problem as one of selecting the most appropriate level of vertical integration, traditional explanations are presented. Following an overview of the transaction cost analysis framework, the implications of this framework for channel selection are discussed. This framework suggests contingent and often opposing effects on channel structure to those found in the literature. Application of the transaction cost analysis framework by managers is demonstrated by showing how to assess such costs, and thus avoid being taken advantage of by opportunistic intermediaries.     

Erin Anderson and the Path Breaking Work of TCE in New Areas of Business Research: Transaction Costs in Action

This review article synthesizes Erin Anderson's academic contribution, with an emphasis on two path breaking aspects of her work, namely the operationalization of TCA in different contexts and the refinement of the theory. We review the measures that she developed to reflect key TCE constructs, and identify five contexts in which Erin Anderson's application of TCE concepts broke new paths. These are employee or representative salesforces, choice of foreign entry mode, new market entry and innovation, countertrade, and ethics. We highlight a number of ways in which her research integrates other theories to transaction cost economics, thereby deepening our understanding of key issues involving make or buy decisions. Finally, we draw attention to directions for future research identified through her work.     

Mobile Phone Use,Transaction Costs,and Price: Evidence from Rural Vegetable Farmers in Cameroon

ABSTRACT

The widespread use of mobile phones in Cameroon should be translated into increased farmers’ income by reducing information-search costs. This study seeks to investigate the effects of mobile phone use on transaction costs related to price information search. Ordinary least-square estimations reveal a positive relationship between mobile phones use and transaction costs. The results show that farmers’ use of mobile phones increases their transaction costs for carrots and tomatoes, unlike for cabbages. This paper suggests the establishment of vegetable information centers that can serve as an interface between stakeholders in agriculture by channeling adequate and timely information to farmers.     

中国企业出海“航母”模式：泰中罗勇案例研究

建立海外工业园、打造企业海外经营的“航母”，正成为本土企业构筑全球价值链的新模式。区别于传统的对外直接投资模式，不确定性和非对称性异域经营环境的“航母”模式，具有节约交易成本、风险规避、快速学习、规模递增以及贸易便捷等多种优势。文章以泰中罗勇工业园为例，分析了“航母”模式的资源基础、组织网络、运行机制和能力架构，形成“航母”的实体资源能力、与众多利益相关者的协作能力以及“航母”平台与栖驻企业之间的边界决策能力。结合案例分析，提出了“航母”模式的“高集聚、本地化与合法性”三大动态构建路径与潜在风险，并提出了相应的政策建议。     

A secure,real-time stock market protocol

Stock markets constitute the largest electronic commerce market in the world. The tremendous growth in trading volume and the need for fast and accurate transaction execution has made the stock market one of the most technology friendly markets. The fastest growing stock exchange, NASDAQ, is a wholly electronic stock exchange with all transactions conducted over computer networks. However, the transaction model used by NASDAQ and other electronic stock markets still borrows heavily from the older traditional models used by non-electronic stock exchanges. Two important requirements of modern day stock market transactions are: (a) customer's ability to place sophisticated transaction orders to buy/sell stock, and (b) customer's ability to detect transaction delays. Modern electronic stock exchanges lack both the ability to place newer, more sophisticated transaction orders and the ability to detect delays in transaction execution. In this paper, we propose a protocol for stock market transaction that can model a new sophisticated model for transaction orders while continuing to support traditional transaction orders. The protocol is augmented with a mechanism to detect delays in transaction execution. It is further shown that the protocol proposed is secure, atomic, anonymous, private, and incurs low overhead costs. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

International Sales Negotiations:

Successful business negotiation in global markets requires effective cross-cultural communication between buyer and seller. Building on a growing body of literature, this paper develops a four-step, funnel-like model of international sales negotiation. This bi-directional framework traces the communications flow from broad non-selling issues to specific aspects of the international sales transaction. The four stages—non-task related activities, information exchange, persuasion, and adjustment—are then discussed individually. Finally, directions for future research in the area of international sale negotiation are presented.