A vision for excellence

One hospital integrates employee relations, customer service and commitment to quality into one successful, award-winning program. Employees at AMI Palmetto General are motivated to constantly consider the hospital's goals and strive for excellence.     

Discriminating Among Alternative Theories of the Multinational Enterprise

Recent theoretical developments have incorporated endogenous multinational firms into the general–equilibrium model of trade. One simple taxonomy separates the theory into "vertical" models, in which firms geographically separate activities by stages of production, and "horizontal" models, in which multiplant firms duplicate roughly the same activities in many countries. The authors nest a horizontal and a vertical model within a hybrid (unrestricted) "knowledge–capital model" and estimate the specifications with data on US foreign direct investment activity. In the nested econometric tests, the data sample cannot distinguish statistically between the unrestricted model and the restricted horizontal model, indicating that the latter captures virtually all of the determinants of FDI. The tests overwhelmingly reject the vertical model.     

A Stochastic Frontier Production Function with Flexible Risk Properties

This paper considers a stochastic frontier production function which has additive, heteroscedastic error structure. The model allows for negative or positive marginal production risks of inputs, as originally proposed by Just and Pope (1978). The technical efficiencies of individual firms in the sample are a function of the levels of the input variables in the stochastic frontier, in addition to the technical inefficiency effects. These are two features of the model which are not exhibited by the commonly used stochastic frontiers with multiplicative error structures.An empirical application is presented using cross-sectional data on Ethiopian peasant farmers. The null hypothesis of no technical inefficiencies of production among these farmers is accepted. Further, the flexible risk models do not fit the data on peasant farmers as well as the traditional stochastic frontier model with multiplicative error structure.     

Learning-by-doing and the sources of productivity growth: A dynamic model with application to U.S. agriculture

The significance of learning to productivity growth is formulated within a dynamic adjustment-cost framework. Explicitly treating the acquisition of knowledge as a firm-specific capital good entering the production function along with other conventional inputs, the dynamic optimization model integrates the learning-by-doing hypothesis with technical change, scale, and disequilibrium input use effects in the aggregate productivity analysis. The theoretical framework is applied to examining the dynamic components accounting for the growth of U.S. production agriculture over the 1950–82 period. The results imply a less important role for technical change and assign a substantial role to the previously unmeasured contribution of learning-by-doing to the growth of aggregate agriculture industry.The editor for this paper was Melvyn Fuss.     

On recalls, layoffs, variable hours, and labor adjustment costs

The paper analyzes the employment policy of a firm that can vary both hours and the level of employment. The analysis differs from previous work in the adjustment cost literature in that the firm is able to change its employment not only through hires, layoffs, and quits, but also by recalls of employees who were previously laid off. Thus, we introduce the possibility of the firm inventorying the labor input. It is shown that this labor inventory potential is necessary if the firm is to ever lay off workers. Further, it is demonstrated that linear rather than strictly convex adjustment costs are then required if the firm is to always recall employees who were previously laid off prior to hiring new workers.     

The generality/specificity issue in consumer innovativeness research

The purpose of the present study was to explore the role of personality in shaping consumer innovativeness by testing a model of the hierarchical relationships between a global (broad or abstract) personality trait, its domain-specific manifestation in a consumer context, and overt consumer behavior. A survey of 465 adult consumers measured global innovativeness, domain-specific innovativeness for two product categories (clothing and electronics) and self-reported purchase of new clothing and electronic items. Three hypotheses were tested. First, global innovativeness is more highly correlated with domain-specific innovativeness than it is with the purchase of new items. Second, domain-specific innovativeness is more highly correlated with the purchase of new items than is global innovativeness. Finally, the association between global innovativeness and new product purchase is mediated by domain-specific innovativeness. All three hypotheses were supported for both product categories.     

The effects of group decision-making process and problem-situation complexity on implementation attempts

The effects of group problem-solving method and problem-situation complexity on attempts at implementing group solutions were investigated in a laboratory-field setting. Group members were supervisory nurses from various organizations, who were randomly assigned to three groups in a balanced research design which included three group decision-making processes and three levels of problem-situation complexity in implementation. The dependent variable was the number of attempts at implementing group-derived solutions in home organizations. The results showed that structure in group decision-making processes led to increased rates of implementation attempts at all levels of problem-situation complexity. There was a significant complexity-by-process interaction effect among the decision-making processes, which supports the conclusion that the type of group decision-making process and the problem-situation complexity should be considered in order to optimize the number of implementation attempts.g