Symmetric and asymmetric leadership cultures: A comparative study of leadership and organizational culture at Hyundai and Toyota

This study compares national cultures, leadership strategies, and work environments in two successful global automobile companies, Hyundai Motor Group and Toyota Motor Corporation. Despite competing head-on in the same market, it was found that these companies use very different leadership strategies as a basis for both global competition and local operations. Based on the results of a comparative case study, structured interviews, and related media and empirical data, it was found that Toyota competes both strategically and managerially by emphasizing planning and work systems to mitigate the impact of any turbulence in the external environment (stability is key), while Hyundai competes by accepting environmental uncertainty and risk as a part of normal daily operations (flexibility is key). We refer to these approaches as symmetric and asymmetric leadership and organizational cultures. As a result of these differences, Hyundai is able to change course more quickly than its larger competitor as new opportunities and technologies emerge. While national cultures played a role in differentiating between the two firms, leadership differences had a more pronounced effect on organizational behaviors and subsequent performance. Results are consistent with previous research and reinforce the conclusion that top management leaders’ behavior can have a significant influence on emergent organizational cultures and performance.     

Insurance premiums under demand constraints

Abstract

An alternative approach to the variance principle of premium determination is explored. The approach rationalises the principle in terms of an economic theory and formalises the notion that loadings in addition to the ‘fair’ premium are related to competition and expenses.     

A Study of the Attitude toward Convergent Products: A Focus on the Consumer Perception of Functionalities

The convergent product is an increasingly important phenomenon in the marketplace. The convergent product allows the developer to include more and more diverse functionalities into their products, which can satisfy a broad range of consumer needs. However, failures of convergent products arouse the need to understand its functionalities, and the optimal combination of functionalities and their relationships to attitude and purchase intention. In addition, because convergent product has the potential to offer more diverse functionality, we consider if this will have impacts on instrumental and emotional needs fulfillment and attitude and purchase intention. Additionally, consumer innovativeness was examined to ascertain if there were differences among consumers on their classification of the functionalities, or if it will moderate functional diversity, needs fulfillment, and product attitude. Using the Kano model, this study examined the nature of these relationships by examining the functionalities of a smartphone. Overall, our results show that the convergent products that include functionalities from two of the three categories of the Kano model, must‐have and attractive, were rated more positively. Consumer innovativeness differences were found. Consumers with high innovativeness considered must‐have and one‐dimensional functionalities the most important, and consumers with low innovativeness considered all three important, although one‐dimensional functionalities were considered significantly less important. Although increasing functional diversity positively raises product attitude and purchase intention, it tends to raise emotional needs fulfillment only once instrumental needs have been met, especially for respondents showing low innovativeness. The findings should arouse interest about factors that should not be overlooked when developing new convergent products.     

Money demand function estimation by nonlinear cointegration

Conventionally, the money demand function is estimated using a regression of the logarithm of money demand on either the interest rate or the logarithm of the interest rate. This equation is presumed to be a cointegrating regression. In this paper, we aim to combine the logarithmic specification, which models the liquidity trap better than a linear model, with the assumption that the interest rate itself is an integrated process. The proposed technique is robust to serial correlation in the errors. For the USA, our new technique results in larger coefficient estimates than previous research suggested, and produces superior out‐of‐sample prediction. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Forecasting Employment Growth in Indonesia

This note discusses the dangers of using the employment-output elasticity to forecast employment creation in Indonesia. It demonstrates the unreliability of employment-output elasticity estimates for Indonesia obtained using various methods, and argues, that, in addition to the estimation problems, the elasticity method has inherent weaknesses that should preclude its use to forecast employment growth in a dynamic world.     

State Power and Private Profit: the political economy of corruption in Southeast Asia

This article reviews the extensive political and economic literature since 1990 on corruption in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. After considering each country's individual recent history of corruption, the article comparatively analyses the relationship of corruption in these countries with, respectively, the roles of the state, the private sector and external actors, democratisation and decentralisation, and the impact of corruption on economic growth and inequality. Our conclusion is that while economic liberalisation, democratisation and centralisation of state power influence the forms of corruption and its impact on national economic performance, they are neither necessary nor sufficient for its decline.     

The Effect of Multiknowledge Individuals on Performance in Cross‐Functional New Product Development Teams*

This study examines the effect of multiknowledge individuals (especially those possessing both marketing and technological knowledge) on performance in cross‐functional new product development teams. A survey of 62 cross‐functional teams shows that the proportion of multiknowledge individuals has an indirect positive effect through information sharing on product innovativeness and a direct positive effect on time efficiency of new product development teams.