The multinational corporation vis-à-vis societies in transformation: The case for intermediate technology in the developing countries

There are preciously few problems, no matter how intricate, which—when perceived form more different angles and over more time—do not grow in complexity. Perhaps the most complicated problem that crossed this author's path is the development of Asia, Latin America and Africa.Development to what? As a Dutch economist who sees himself preferably as a socioeconomist, I perceive development as a level of human dignity that requires, a priori, employment. For to be unemployed is to be outside society and to lose face, self-respect and income.As a regional planner for a large multinational corporation—CPC International, Inc.—I have studied in some depth what comes first: education or employment; resources or employment; consumption or production; food or productivity; agriculture or industry; growth or distribution. Having been exposed to these problems in various continents, I have reached the conclusion that employment is, on balance, the number one priority.That priority calls for a highly labor-intensive technology, which in this article is termed “intermediate technology”. It constitutes one phase of development that can create rock-bottom employment, a meager but sure and growing income, and human dignity for one billion marginated people in three continents. That objective requires ingenuous technological forecasting for vital social change.     

Assessing the Impact of Formal and Informal Regulations on Environmental and Economic Performance of Brazilian Manufacturing Firms

This study investigates the impact of formal and informal regulations on environmental and economic performance of Brazilian manufacturing firms. We adopt a dual approach where production technology is represented by a cost function, approximated by a translog form. Pollution is considered as a negative by-product that can be modified trough using either formal regulation (inspections or sanctions) or informal regulation (community pressure). A simultaneous equation model is estimated by three-stage least squares on a sample of 404 industrial establishments located in the state of S?o Paulo, Brazil. We show that pollution abatement costs for the Brazilian manufacturing sector are different from zero which suggests that pollution emissions are affected by environmental regulation. We also demonstrate that environmental performance of firms is jointly affected by formal and informal regulation. Lastly, formal regulation is largely influenced by informal regulation and more specifically by community pressure.     

Competition for attention in the Information (overload) Age

The Information Age has a surfeit of information received relative to what is processed. We model multiple sectors competing for consumer attention, with competition in price within each sector. Sector advertising levels follow a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) form, and within‐sector prices are dispersed with a truncated Pareto distribution. The “information hump” shows highest ad levels for intermediate attention levels. Overall, advertising is excessive, although the allocation across sectors is optimal. The blame for information overload falls most on product categories with low information transmission costs and low profits.     

Financialization as a strategy of workplace control in professional service firms

Recently, there has been an increased focus on finance as a form of control in corporations. In this paper, we explore financialization as an employee control strategy in a Big Four accountancy firm, and more specifically how it affects the everyday lives of the professionals within the firm. We found financialization involved attempts to transform employees working lives into an investment activity where work was experienced as ‘billable hours’ that are ‘invested’ in the hope of a high future pay-off. Employees sought to increase the value of their investment by skilful manipulation. If wisely managed, this investment could yield significant benefits in the future. We argue that financialization involves active employee participation and is a way of binding other forms of control together.     

中国城镇不同所有制企业职工收入差距的变化趋势

本文利用最新发布的CHIP-2007和CHIP-2002分析了2002年到2007年中国城镇不同所有制企业职工收入差距的变化趋势。我们发现这段时期不同所有制企业的收入差距正在减小,且这种收敛的趋势更有利于非国有企业职工,这与1995年到2002年的变化趋势形成鲜明对比。当我们分解收入差距时,发现个体的特征或能力的差别对于解释收入差距的重要性在显著提高。此外,市场分割对于不同所有制的企业仍然存在,特别对于高收入群体,但有逐步缩小的趋势。     

Induced and Linguistic Generalized Aggregation Operators and Their Application in Linguistic Group Decision Making

We introduce a wide range of induced and linguistic generalized aggregation operators. First, we present the induced linguistic generalized ordered weighted averaging (ILGOWA) operator. It is a generalization of the OWA operator that uses linguistic variables, order inducing variables and generalized means in order to provide a more general formulation. One of its main results is that it includes a wide range of linguistic aggregation operators such as the induced linguistic OWA (ILOWA), the induced linguistic OWG (ILOWG) and the linguistic generalized OWA (LGOWA) operator. We further generalize the ILGOWA operator by using quasi-arithmetic means obtaining the induced linguistic quasi-arithmetic OWA (Quasi-ILOWA) operator and by using hybrid averages forming the induced linguistic generalized hybrid average (ILGHA) operator. We also present a further extension with Choquet integrals. We call it the induced linguistic generalized Choquet integral aggregation (ILGCIA). We end the paper with an application of the new approach in a linguistic group decision making problem.     

Agricultural commodities pricing model applied to the Brazilian sugar market

This article suggests a pricing model for commodities used to produce biofuel. The model is based on the concept that the deterministic component of the Wiener process is not constant and depends on time and exogenous variables. The model, which incorporates theory of storage, the convenience yield and the seasonality of harvests, was applied in the Brazilian sugar market. After predictions were made with the Kalman filter, the model produced results that were statistically more accurate than those returned by the two‐factor model available in the literature.     

When your contract manufacturer becomes your competitor

PC maker Lenovo started out as a distributor of equipment made by IBM and other companies; now it has formed a joint venture with IBM and will eventually affix its own logo to its computers. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) started out manufacturing vehicles for Volkswagen and GM; now it's preparing to sell its own cars in China, Europe, and North America. Lenovo and SAIC represent a host of formerly anonymous makers of brand-name products that are breaking out of their defined roles and pushing the brands themselves aside. In this article, the authors explore the double-edged relationships original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) forge with their contract manufacturers (CMs). On the one hand, an OEM can reduce its labor costs, free up capital, and improve worker productivity by outsourcing all the manufacturing of a product. The company can then concentrate on value-adding activities--research and development, product design, and marketing, for instance. On the other hand, an OEM that retains a contract manufacturer may find itself immersed in a melodrama replete with promiscuity (the ambitious CM pursues liaisons with other OEMs), infidelity (the OEM's retailers and distributors shift their business to the upstart CM), and betrayal (the brazen CM transmits the OEM's intellectual property to the OEM's rivals or keeps it for itself when the contract is up). OEMs cannot simply terminate their outsourcing arrangements--they need contract manufacturers in order to keep specializing, adding value, and staying competitive. But OEMs can manage these relationships so that they don't become weak or the CMs too strong. Doing so requires modesty about revealing trade secrets; caution about whom one consorts with; and a judicious degree of intimacy, loyalty, and generosity toward partners and customers.     

Understanding the microenterprise sector to design a tailor-made microfinance policy for Cape Verde

Two of the central challenges faced by Cape Verde at the present are the high level of unemployment and the increasing proportion of the population living in (relative) poverty. Microenterprise development can be an effective means of addressing both problems in a developing country like Cape Verde, where microenterprises account for about 50% of employment. In this paper we provide a detailed profile of Cape Verdean microenterprises and microentrepreneurs and investigate the relationship between their characteristics and the resort to outside seed capital. We find a cluster of factors—the microentrepreneur’s age, gender, level of education and reason for being self-employed—which influence significantly the probability of being in need for external start-up capital. The policy implications of these findings for the design of a specific microfinance program for Cape Verde are discussed.

Aid and Poverty in Africa: Do Well‐being Measures Understate the Progress?

Abstract: In the last 15 years international aid donors to Africa have shifted their focus dramatically toward health and education; the share of social sector support in total aid rose from 33 per cent to 60 per cent from 1990–94 to 2000–2004 alone. If this aid has been effective, it is unlikely to be captured in GDP or income poverty figures. This paper uses the Demographic and Health Survey at multiple points in time to explore changes in well‐being in ten sub‐Saharan African countries. It compares the evolution of both assets and health which are considered as the two main dimensions of well‐being. These dimensions are simultaneously estimated using the structural equation models with latent variables that have been developed in the psychometric literature. The comparisons of well‐being across time in each country are based on the stochastic dominance analysis. The main results suggest that assets and health have improved during the last two decades in most of these countries. A decline in assets is observed for three countries while health deteriorates in two countries. The reduced poverty appears to be explained less by the aid than other factors in most cases.