Decomposition analysis of the telecommunications sector in Indonesia: What does the cellular era shed light on?

Indonesia is currently enjoying rapid development in the telecommunications sector despite the economy having been heavily dependent for almost four decades on the two largest sectors: the manufacturing industry and trade. The telecommunications sector has played an important role in stimulating economic growth in the country during the last few years, with an annual growth rate higher than that of other sectors. This contribution is supported to a great extent by the rapid diffusion of telephony, in particular cellular telephony, as the number of subscribers increased from just 2.1 million in 1999 to 170 million in 2011. Previous studies investigating the impact of the telecommunications sector on the economy aggregate the impact of the sectors on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) without further scrutiny of what sources of growth telecommunications has contributed. Hence, an interesting question arises as to whether the achievement of cellular diffusion is also followed by structural change in the telecommunications sector. That said, this study aims to decompose the output of telecommunications into several sources of growth: domestic final demand, export effect, import substitution effect and technological coefficient effect. A particular interest in this study is to compare the source of growth concerning domestic final demand and the technological coefficient effect. The main tool for analysis in this study is the Input–Output (IO) method, while the time series of the investigation covers the period 1975–2008, allowing comparison of structural changes in the telecommunications sector between the pre- and post-cellular eras. The study found that the coefficient multiplier of the telecommunications sector, which was approximately 1.8 during the 1980s, had decreased to only 1.3 by the end of 2008. Consequently, the final demand from the telecommunications sector contributed less to economic output in the late 2000s compared to the impact in the 1980. Moreover, the cellular era that started in the early 2000s also brought about a trend of changes in telecommunications output. While final demand remains very dominant, the technological coefficient effect has diminished as the source of telecommunications output. This finding indicates a lower ability of the telecommunications sector to build an inter-industry relationship with other sectors. A possible explanation for this result is the cellular uses which are much less related to business activities than that of fixed telephony dating back to the 1970s in Indonesia.     

Trade facilitation and country size

It is argued that compared with large countries, small countries rely more on trade and therefore are more likely to adopt liberal trading policies. The present paper extends this idea beyond the conventional trade openness measures by analyzing the relationship between country size and the number of documents required to export and import, a measure of trade facilitation. Three important results follow. First, trade facilitation does improve as country size becomes smaller; that is, small countries perform better than large countries in terms of trade facilitation. Second, the relationship between country size and trade facilitation is nonlinear, much stronger for the relatively small than the large countries. Third, contrary to what existing studies might suggest, the relationship between country size and trade facilitation does not appear to be driven by the fact that small countries trade more as a proportion of their gross domestic product than the large countries.     

互联网金融服务于中小微企业探析

2014年阿里巴巴在纽约证券交易所的正式上市,我国互联网金融企业迎来了一个春天。互联网涉猎于金融行业相关的服务及产品之中。互联网金融的发展在一定程度上促进了相关金融行业的整体发展,实现了相关服务信息的透明化和公开化。一方面,中小微企业相关金融服务存在融资的手续繁琐,成本相对较高,信贷配给量过低,融资渠道单一;另一方面,互联网金融实现了小额信贷的规模化和金融服务的订单化,保证了低成本服务的覆盖面积,实现了融资模式的创新。     

The role of networking and commitment in foreign market entry process: Multinational corporations in the Chinese automobile industry

This study addresses the role of business networking and commitment to local market when MNCs enter an emerging market. We investigate the reasons for variations in the speed of MNCs’ foreign market entry. Particularly, we examine whether MNCs’ networking with the key local actors facilitates MNCs’ entry and whether learning and commitment in the context of networking affects the speed of MNCs’ entry process in the Chinese automobile market. The study is based on the experiences of three MNCs, a U.S.-based firm, a European firm, and a Korean firm. Data is collected through in-depth interviews and through secondary sources related to the entry process of these cases. The cases illustrate that speed of foreign market entry is significantly influenced by business networking between MNCs and the key business and socio-political actors, since different types of business networking determine the level of learning and commitment. Our cases also show that the effects of business networking generated during the initial foreign market entry by the MNC may be different than those during sequential entries.     

Multiproject scheduling: Analysis of scheduling strategies under unequal delay penalties

The multiproject scheduling problem is investigated under the assumption that delays corresponding to different projects carry different penalties. Five penalty functions are introduced that simulate typical business behavior. These are: 1) assigning the highest penalty to the project requiring the greatest amount of resources; 2) assigning the highest priority to the longest project; 3) assigning the highest priority to the project requiring the least amount of resources; 4) assigning the highest priority to the shortest project; and 5) random assignment. Justification for each case is provided.Two powerful project summary measures were used to generate the test problems. The first measure, average resource load factor (ARLF), identifies whether the location of the peak requirement of all (i.e., combined) resources is in the first or second half of the project's critical path. If each resource is expressed in terms of dollars, then ARLF identifies the location of the peak cash requirement. Since in practice the choice of the scheduling strategy is influenced by the location of the peak cash requirement, performance of the scheduling strategies is analyzed with respect to values of this measure. The second measure, average utilization factor (AUF), calculates the ratio of resource requirements to availabilities. It is shown that problems tested must have different AUF values in order to be classified different for purposes of experimental design. Thus a factorial model of the form, y = Strategy + Penalty + ARLF + AUF + ? was used to generate 385 problems, each requiring 2 to 4 resources, containing 3 to 5 projects and 34 to 63 activities.The computer program used in the study is based on a parallel method of scheduling in which priorities of the activities are determined when the activity is considered for scheduling. Ten scheduling strategies are tested. Some important ones are: 1) to schedule the shortest activity first; 2) to schedule the activity with minimum slack first; 3) to schedule the activity with maximum work content first (i.e., from the project with highest work content); 4) to schedule the shortest activity from the shortest project first; and 5) to schedule the activity with maximum penalty first. Shortest activity first and minimum slack first are popular strategies introduced by other researchers.Using number of times ranked first as our criterion, scheduling the activity with maximum penalty first provides the best results followed by the strategy of scheduling the activity with maximum work content. But when these results are analyzed with respect to existence of a very expensive project (i.e., dominance) in the problem, performance of the maximum penalty strategy improves. When the overall results are analyzed with respect to values of ARLF, a different picture emerges. Then the strategy of scheduling the activity with the highest penalty first provides the best results if the peak requirement is early. When the peak requirement is toward the middle of a project's unconstrained critical path, scheduling the activity with the highest work content provides the best results. When the peak requirement is late in a project's life, scheduling the shortest activity from the shortest project is the best strategy to adopt. These findings were tested for statistical significance by using nonparametric testing procedures and were found to be significant.     

Comovements in the equity prices of large complex financial institutions

In recent years, mergers, acquisitions and organic growth have meant that some of the largest and most complex financial groups have come to transcend national boundaries and traditionally defined business-lines. As a result, they have become a potential channel for the cross-border and cross-market transmission of financial shocks. This paper analyses the degree of comovement in the equity prices of a selected group of large complex financial institutions (LCFIs), and assesses the extent to which movements are driven by common factors. A relatively high degree of commonality is found for most LCFIs although there are still noticeable divisions between sub-groups of LCFIs, both according to geography and to a lesser extent primary business-line.     

The Long-Term Performance of Small Businesses: Are there Differences Between “Christian-Based” Companies and their Secular Counterparts?

Recent years have witnessed the proliferation of “Christian” companies in the U.S. These firms declare their belief in, and active pursuit of, the successful merging of biblical principles with business activities. Economic success, hard work, and biblical values are seen as capable of existing together in harmony. While the number of such businesses appears to be growing, there has been a dearth of any scientific study of these companies. No empirical research has been conducted to determine whether these religious values and behaviors have any significant impact on a company’s performance. The present study is designed to partially fill this gap. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether there are differences in long-term performance between self-proclaimed “Christian-based” businesses and their secular counterparts. Data were collected from 312 companies. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), followed by univariate ANOVAs, found significant differences between these two groups of firms on three of the four performance variables that were analyzed. Some explanations as well as limited generalizations and implications are developed.     

A Three Country Comparative Analysis of Managerial CSR Perspectives: Insights From Lebanon,Syria and Jordan

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has acquired a new resonance in the global economy. With the advent of globalization, managers in different contexts have been exposed to the notion of CSR and are being pressured to adopt CSR initiatives. Yet, in view of vastly differing national cultures and institutional realities, mixed orientations to CSR continue to be salient in different contexts, oscillating between the classical perspective which considers CSR as a burden on competitiveness and the modern perspective that views CSR as instrumental for business success. Capitalizing on the two-dimensional CSR model developed by Quazi and O’Brien (Journal of Business Ethics 25, 33–51, 2000), this article assesses managerial perspectives towards CSR in three neighboring Middle Eastern countries (Lebanon, Syria and Jordan) through an empirical study involving 333 managers. The findings lend support to the Quazi and O’Brien model (2000), suggesting some commonalities in CSR orientations as well as minor divergences. The findings are discussed and cross-cultural implications drawn accordingly.