R&D–Marketing Integration Mechanisms, Communication Flows, and Innovation Success

Rudy Moenaert, William Souder, Arnoud De Meyer, and Dirk Deschoolmeester report the results of their study of forty technologically innovative Belgian companies to examine the interaction between marketing and R&D. They studied one commercially successful and one commercially unsuccessful technological product innovation project in each participating company and collected data from one marketing and one R&D respondent per project. Communication flows between marketing and R&D are increased under conditions involving formalization of projects, decentralization, positive interfunctional climate, and role flexibility.     

Competition Among Universities and the Emergence of the Élite Institution

We consider an environment where two education institutions compete by selecting the proportion of their funding devoted to teaching and research and the criteria for admission for their students, and where students choose whether and where to attend university. We study the relationship between the cost incurred by students for attending a university located away from their home town and the equilibrium configuration that emerges in the game played by the universities. Symmetric equilibria, where universities choose the same admission standard, only exist when the mobility cost is high; when the mobility cost is very low, there is no pure strategy equilibrium. For intermediate values of the mobility cost, only asymmetric equilibria may exist; the final section of the paper provides an example where asymmetric equilibria do indeed exist for a plausible and robust set of parameters.     

Inflation dynamics in Kazakhstan1

In January 1992, Kazakhstan initiated a reform programme to move towards market-determined prices. The price liberalization process was characterized by large relative price shifts and an increase in the overall price level towards those observed in market economies. The paper shows how the piecemeal manner in which prices were liberalized resulted in strong relative price variability over a prolonged period of time, against a background of high inflation. Convergence towards international relative and absolute price levels has progressed but is not complete, with prices for energy and services in particular still below market economy levels.     

Technology Transfer and Learning

Despite the fact that international technology transfer has been widely studied its management still encounters many difficulties. To fully understand the issues that are relevant to the process of transferring production technology, it is necessary to determine the important factors that influence this process. Learning curves are often used as a means of determining the time required to become familiar with a transferred technology. The cases discussed in this paper have all employed learning curves, which were established at the outset of the transfer process and which turned out to be incorrect. As a consequence the envisaged efficiencies were not obtained. This phenomenon is partly due to the fact that when technology is transferred to a relatively inexperienced 'destination company', the curve is established based on the circumstances of the 'source company'. The case study findings lead to the conclusion that to establish a realistic curve a more comprehensive method is required than simply basing anticipated performance on that achieved at the source company.     

The Recognition and Timing of Deferred Tax Liabilities

Abstract:   This paper examines the characteristics of firms that account for deferred tax liabilities related to government investment grants under an extended adoption timing period. Not only the recognition but also the timing decision is associated with changes in future performance and changes in the debt structure. Recognisers outperform non‐recognisers in the future, while early recognition is related to post recognition performance but only for those firms that currently perform well. Changes in the balance sheet structure are also related to both decisions. Firms with recent increases in the debt level tend to postpone recognition, while currently well‐performing firms that increase their future debt level are less likely to recognise deferred taxes.     

Guest Editorial

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics -     

Towards a New Euro Crisis?

Intereconomics - There is thus a fundamental credibility issue about the willingness of the ECB to be a lender of last resort in the government bond markets. This will continue to make the eurozone...     

Clustering consistency analysis

Cluster analysis is a frequently used technique in marketing as a method to develop partitions or classifications for market segmentation, product positioning, test market selection, etc. Because of the vast diversity in the assortment of clustering algorithms available, it is often times not obvious which algorithm or technique should be employed. It is often recommended that the marketer perform more than one cluster analysis on the same data set and compare representations as a reliability check. A methodology for evaluating the consistency of different clusterings is introduced via contingency table analysis by log-linear models. In addition, insight is provided as to selecting a “best” representative clustering by examining Stewart and Love's (1968) redundancy measures. Bell Laboratories     

现代畜牧企业社会责任初探

本文主要探讨了现代畜牧企业社会责任内容以及当前我国畜牧企业社会责任存在的问题及原因。对于如何提升畜牧企业社会责任,本人认为主要从政府、社会层面、企业层面和行业层面来提升现代畜牧企业的社会责任。