R&D activity in Canada: does corporate ownership structure matter?

This study examines the link between ownership structures and R&D activities in Canada. We hypothesize that highly concentrated ownership structures or the presence of controlling minority shareholders negatively affects R&D intensity of Canadian manufacturing firms. Our results show that the concentration of voting rights is negatively related to the level of R&D expenditure and R&D outcomes. Furthermore, we show that the level of separation between the voting and cash flow rights held by dominant shareholders of “Controlling Minority Structure” firms has a positive effect on R&D intensity but a negative effect on R&D outcomes. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contribution to a renewed framework for analysing the interactions between family and capitalist agriculture

We examine whether current assumptions concerning the declining resilience of family farming and the growing influence of capitalist forms of agricultural production are being confirmed in the cocoa sector of Cameroon and the coffee sector of Kenya. This study is based on surveys of 181 family and capitalist farmers. Our results indicate that the capitalist approach is being consolidated on former colonial coffee estates in Kenya and on the cocoa pioneer front in Cameroon. This study also shows that in areas with a long history of family farming, family forms are showing good resilience due to a diversification of activities and sources of income, especially nonagricultural ones, and the patrimonialization of the land. Finally, this study proposes a framework for analysing the interactions between family and capitalist agriculture and their respective multisectorial strategies. For family farming, these strategies are based on work force mobility, whereas for capitalist agriculture, they are based on financial capital mobility.     

Intellectual property rights exhaustion—Opposite viewpoints: United States/Europe: Silhouette International v. Hartlauer & Quality King Distributors v. L'anza Research International

This article considers two recent opinions, one of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the other of the Supreme Court of the United States. Both deal with the exhaustion of intellectual property rights, but the results and underlying reasoning clearly conflict. In this brief article, we attempt to discuss these cases and suggest some reasons for the different results. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Case studies of computer integrated manufacturing systems: A view of uncertainty and innovation processes

The adoption and implementation of new manufacturing processes are conceptualized in terms of coping with uncertainty. Manufacturing management opts for new equipment in order to reduce certain long run, nagging uncertainties, but at the expense of introducing considerable short run uncertainty associated with the innovation. Various coping strategies must be employed to deal with the situation. Our ideas are explored and developed by comparing how four firms in different countries adopted and implemented computer integrated manufacturing systems (CIM). Qualitative interviews with managers at different hierarchical levels and in different functions brought answers to the following questions: 1) What were the reasons for adopting a CIM? 2) What strategies were employed in order to facilitate the introduction of CIM's into the Firm? 3) What were the significant implementation problems that were encountered? In spite of cultural and other differences among the firms, coping with uncertainty explains significant aspects of their innovation processes.     

Les subventions des taux d'intérêt et le prix de la terre agricole au Québec

Cet article analyse les variables influençant le prix de la terre agricole au Québec et analyse, plus spécifiquement, l'impact des taux d'intérêt sur emprunt puisque ce dernier est subventionné au Québec. On propose un modèle tenant compte de l'activité agricole et de l'activité non agricole. Un impact positif des recettes agricoles sur le prix de la terre est principalement noté dans les régions près des centres urbains où l'agriculture est concentrée, soit en périphérie de Montréal et dans la région de Québec. Les sources de revenus non agricoles ont un impact significatif sur le prix des terres settlement dans la région la plus urbaine, soit prés de Montréal. Selon les coefficients de flexibilité calculés et les taux d'intérêt en vigueur au cours de la période étudiée, l'abolition des subventions du taux d'intérêt pourrait initier une chute de l'ordre de 15% a court terme et de 7% a long terme du prix de la terre dans les régions de Québec et de Montreal.     

Residential change and economic choice behavior

Theory of economic choice behavior is applied to construct a dynamic model of residential change at the neighborhood scale. The utility of a neighborhood depends on the investor's decisions, and two different specifications are considered. In the first, these decisions result from a strategy fixed a priori. The model can then be easily studied. The second is concerned with the simplified case of a single neighborhood and supposes that the housing price and quality are dependent on maintenance expenditures viewed as a function of the number of individuals living in the neighborhood. It is then shown how different processes of residential change can be generated by purely economic factors.