The erosion of stable shareholder practice in Japan (“Anteikabunushi Kosaku”)

This study reviews the academic literature to explain internationalisation, mode of entry choice and strategic momentum theory. In this research, we ask whether DiMaggio's theory of isomorphism can be applied to Japan, given the country's Anteikabunushi Kosaku practices and the evidence cited in the literature that suggests that national culture influences managerial work values and Japanese entry mode strategies.We suggest that Japanese management attitudes towards entry mode strategy are changing due to a change in corporate governance policy and competition. In response, we argue that Japan's stable shareholder practice is eroding and that as a result of this erosion, the change observed in institutional behaviour is isomorphic.     

Social Provisioning as a Starting Point for Feminist Economics

The past decade has seen a proliferation of writing by feminist economists. Feminist economists are not identified with one particular economic paradigm, yet some common methodological points seem to be emerging. I propose making these starting points more explicit so that they can be examined, critiqued, and built upon. I use the term “social provisioning” to describe this emerging methodology. Its five main components are: incorporation of caring and unpaid labor as fundamental economic activities; use of well-being as a measure of economic success; analysis of economic, political, and social processes and power relations; inclusion of ethical goals and values as an intrinsic part of the analysis; and interrogation of differences by class, race-ethnicity, and other factors. The paper then provides brief illustrations of the use of this methodology in analyses of US welfare reform, gender and development, and feminist ecological economics.     

Contrasting FOR and WITH factor chains: The case of material supply chains and human factor chains in Guatemalan nongovernmental organizations

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have varied success in meeting the challenges of disasters in Antigua, Guatemala. This research uses the TO–FOR–WITH model based on nine criteria that separate surviving NGOs from transient NGOs. Two Guatemalan NGOs, Corazon de los Nino and Sonidos para la Vida, are used to validate the model. The two NGOs differ on three of the nine criteria in the TO–FOR–WITH model. Corazon meets all nine criteria and is considered a WITH organization using local sources for employment, supplies, and logistics. Sonidos is a FOR organization because it falls short in the three categories of bilateral communication, residual intelligence, and post hoc deployment. The criteria were found to distinguish the two NGOs in meaningful ways. However, two cases are not sufficient for theory building. We distinguish between factor chains and material supply chains, a distinction that is especially salient for humanitarian services, which are the primary offerings of many NGOs. No prior studies have tested this recent model and no previous studies have addressed the distinction between material supply chains and factor chains. Additional research is needed including expanding to other NGOs, other countries, and other settings.     

Learning Through Advocacy: An Experimental Evaluation of an Adversary Instructional Model

Dr. Kourilsky describes the use of her Adversary Instructional Model and reports on an experiment in which the Model was used in high school economics classes. Control and experimental groups were tested with the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, the Dietz Test of Economic Understanding and a specially designed Attitude Rigidity Inventory or “opinion ballot.” Some of the results are surprising, but the superior performance of the experimental group on the Watson-Glaser test strongly suggests that the Adversary Instructional Model is a valuable instructional device.     

Estimating U.S. consumer preferences for meat with a flexible utility function

Direct and indirect translog utility functions provide budget share equations which are both flexible and consistent with the theory of utility maximization. These forms are attractive for modelling consumer behavior. Because of their flexibility they are ideal for testing hypotheses such as additivity of preferences. In this paper we use the translog methodology to analyze U.S. consumption of the four principal categories of meat-fish, beef, poultry, and pork. We decisively reject the hypothesis of additivity. However, further testing for partial additivity reveals that (beef) and (fish, poultry, pork) are additively separable subgroups of meat.     

Future kinship and the study of culture

Throughout the 20th century, body and machine have provided distinctive parallel metaphors for the concept of culture. But now these metaphors are merging as human lives are increasingly engineered through technonatural processes. In one imagined future, biotechnology will give us the means to determine our own genealogy and the potential to play a role in the ‘culturing’ of the future, as the natural and unpredictable transmission of human characteristics is transformed into a predictable process arising from the manipulation of the gene pool. New procreative possibilities—fertilization in vitro, gamete donation, maternal surrogacy etc—challenge us to reconstrue notions of identity and kinship; the article speculates on the implications of this for possible cultural futures.     

Nursing home costs and quality of care outcomes

The relationship between cost and quality of care in nursing homes was examined using quality indicator measures of resident outcomes. While each individual quality measure makes only small contributions to costs, when considered across the facility, quality could have a substantial financial impact on the operations of the home.     

Female Managers in Britain – A Comparative Perspective

The aim of this article is to present the current position of female managers in Britain and examine the similarities and differences between male and female managers. In terms of managerial efficiency and performance per se, the evidence strongly suggests that there are far more similarities than differences between the way men and women ‘manage’. However, there are some major sex differences in relation to demographic profiles, job status and employment factors, career development, occupational stress levels, and attitudes towards female managers compared to their male counterparts. One in nine managers in Britain are women and less than one per cent occupy senior management positions. Women managers tend to have to be more highly qualified than men managers, are more likely to be single or divorced, and encounter more prejudice and discrimination in the work environment. In addition, compared to male managers female managers have to cope with additional stresors stemming both from their work and home lives. It is suggested that many of these differences are hampering the career prospects of women in management and contributing towards the difficulties they have in reaching the higher levels of management compared to men. Finally, recommendations for changes in corporate and legislative policies are also proposed.     

Industrial Migration: A Case Study of Destination by City-Surburban Origin within the New York Metropolitan Area*

Since the early stages of industrial development, the outflow of jobs from central city to suburb has been discernable. This intrametropolitan dispersion process, slowed by depression and war, gained impetus following World War II and accelerated during the ensuing decades. By the 1970s, however, a new dimension had been added to the dispersion process—especially in the mature urban areas of the North-east and Midwest—that being the outflow of jobs from suburbs themselves to other regions of the U.S. Given this new interregional dimension, a multi-jurisdictional strategy to stem the job outflow is in order. This paper provides an input into the framework for developing such a strategy through an examination of destination patterns of jobs by intrametropolitan point of origin using New York City and Nassau-Suffolk as a case study.     

The Internetalisation of information,knowledge, and interaction components of the firm's internationalisation process

Abstract

Transcending traditional national borders, the Internet is an evolving technology that has opened up many new international market opportunities. However, ambiguity remains, with limited research and understanding of how the Internet influences the firm's internationalisation-process components. As a consequence, there has been a call for further investigation of the phenomenon. Thus the purpose of this study was to investigate the Internet's impact on internationalisation-process components, specifically, information availability, information usage, and interactive communication, with international market growth. Analysis was undertaken using structural equation modelling. Findings highlight the positive mediating impact of the Internet on information availability and usage, with the international market growth of the firm.