Export taxes and sectoral economic growth: evidence from cotton and yarn markets in Pakistan

Pakistan used an export tax on raw cotton from 1988-1995 in order to suppress the internal price of cotton to benefit the domestic yarn industry. An analysis was conducted to estimate the impact of this policy on both the cotton and yarn sectors. These effects were simulated using the results ol a structural econometric model of these sectors of Pakistan's economy Results indicated that the export tax had a negative impact on the growth rale in the cotton sector, while having little or no impact on the yarn sector. Thus, the export lax did not achieve its objective of increasing the growth rate of value-added (yarn) production above what would have occurred naturally.     

Sunk costs and sunk benefits: A re-examination of re-investment decisions

Prior experimental studies supporting the prospect theory explanation of the sunk-cost effect manipulate the framing of the initial investment, describing it either in neutral terms or as a prior loss. This paper subjects the prospect theory explanation to further examination, but takes an alternative experimental approach based on the differential risk taking behaviour predicted by prospect theory’s S-shaped value function. The experiments manipulate whether an initial investment produces a sunk cost (prior loss) or a sunk benefit (prior gain) and investigate the impact of this on the likelihood of authorising an incremental investment held constant across treatment conditions. To ensure the results are robust to the type of incremental investment, two experiments are conducted across which the outcomes of the incremental investment are manipulated to produce poor or good investment opportunities. In all cases the results fail to support a higher likelihood of authorising the incremental investment following a sunk cost than a sunk benefit. In isolation, therefore, prospect theory is unable to explain fully the sunk-cost effect.     

The Development of Hybrid East and West Organizations in Malaysia

The current research investigates how successful Chinese business groups in Malaysia integrate Chinese management ideas with selected techniques from the West to form a hybrid model of management. The case research methodology was a rigorous, in-depth analysis of large successful Chinese family organizations in Malaysia. We find that management techniques from different cultures are combined in efficient Malaysian organizations, so East and West cross cultural boundaries around a continuing core of flexibility, networks, and family control. From our findings, entrepreneurs will be able to gain an understanding of how to enhance competitiveness in East Asia in general and Malaysia in particular.     

Strategic innovation and technology adoption in an evolving industry

We introduce a racing model with multiple product generations, product innovation, spin-outs, and licensing. Industry conditions and innovation characteristics affect who wins the race and who markets the resulting product. Small firms market their innovations when they pioneer a new generation or improve quality in a young generation and license their innovations in mature generations. If old generation leaders ever market improvements in young generation goods, they do so early on. Leadership in mature generations persists. Tests on the rigid disk drive industry (1977-1997) provide empirical support. The results have implications for antitrust policies and policies governing employee non-compete agreements.     

The reliability and rationale of Hackman and Oldham's Job Diagnostic Survey and Job Characteristics Model among seasonal hotel workers

This study examines the reliability of Hackman and Oldham's Job Diagnostic Survey and the validity of their Job Characteristics Model among seasonal hotel workers in the UK. One hundred and sixty-three useable questionnaires were returned. The analyses chosen (multiple and off-diagonal correlations, multiple and partial regressions) are similar to those used by the authors in their original assessment. In general, reliability scores were comparable with those of Hackman and Oldham, supporting the validity of the Job Diagnostic Survey and theoretical tenets of their theory of work motivation. In addition, hotel workers were satisfied with their jobs despite, in some cases, poor working conditions. This likely to be explained by the opportunity hotels provide for social interaction among workers rather than the p-11 resence of ‘tangible’ objective job elements espoused by popular notions of motivation.     

Visualizing the Self: Exploring the Potential Benefits and Drawbacks for New Product Evaluation

This study examines the role of visual processing in new product evaluation. The primary goal of this research was to provide insights into the role of visualization content (self‐related versus others‐related images) in product evaluation as it differentially relates to two separate types of products—incremental products and really new products. This study's results show that for incremental products, visualizing with self‐related images (versus others‐related images) led to higher evaluations. In this context, it seems that familiarity with the product category from which an incremental product extension is generated enables individuals to produce images easily where they can see themselves using the new product. In some sense, self‐related visualization might be thought of as a form of surrogate experience with the new product. The ability to self‐reference during evaluation provides positive benefits to the evaluation outcome. Contrasting this result, this study's findings showed that for really new product introductions the previously identified benefits of self‐visualization were not realized. Confirming this study's prediction, the advantage of self‐visualization over others‐related visualization was lost. This is attributed to consumer difficulty in visualizing the full application of a really new product to their current consumption behavior. Of further interest, this study's results also showed that in the case of really new products others‐related visualization facilitated higher evaluations than self‐visualization. The mediating role of visualization‐based evaluation difficulty provides further explanation for these findings. Self‐related images are shown to be difficult to imagine in a really new product context, whereas imagining others utilizing the really new product is shown to be significantly easier. Perhaps individuals can see the benefits and better understand the novel applications of a really new product when visually simulating someone else using it but have more trouble imagining the applicability of the innovation in their own life. These findings are integrated into a discussion of the managerial implications and the potential avenues for future research in the area.     

Coordination, Challenges, and Innovations in 19 National Sustainable Development Strategies

In this article, we study 19 developing and developed countries to identify key challenges, approaches, and innovations in strategic and coordinated action for sustainable development at the national level. We are interested in the institutional fabric of implementing sustainable development. What are governments actually doing to organize the processes required for this? What are the institutional innovations in this regard and what kind of typologies can be identified?Despite some true progress made, our findings indicate that countries are still at the early stages of learning toward effective action for sustainable development. This applies both to developing and developed countries. Key unsolved challenges include (a) coordination with the national budget, (b) coordination with sub-national level sustainable development strategies, and (c) coordination with other national-level strategy processes.