Measuring performance in new product development projects: A case study in the aerospace industry

Implementing a performance measurement system (PMS) for research and development (R&D) is fundamental for supporting decision making and motivating researchers and engineers; however, this is a very challenging task, because effort levels are not measurable and success highly uncertain. Even if the subject has largely been debated in academic and practitioners literature so far, an acknowledged managerial approach is not available yet. This paper investigates the implementation and use of a PMS in new product development (NPD) projects, which represents a relatively unexplored issue in the R&D performance measurement debate. In particular, studying the case of a military aircraft development project, it provides a reference framework that integrates the major literature contributions' findings and suggests a practical approach for the design and implementation of an effective PMS for NPD.     

Technological specialization and economic performance in oecd countries

The paper investigates the growing sectoral specialization in technological activities of OECD countries (measured using patent data) and its impact on countries innovative-and economic performance in the 1975-1990 period. Aggregate indicators of sectoral specialization are introduced, showing the extent to which countries concentrate their innovations in few fields, or spread them across several sectors. A general positive relationship us found between the degree of specializatin in technology and higher rates of growth, while specialization in electronics-related fields in not associated to better economic or technological performances.The position of individual countries in these patterns is also examined, showing that specialization has been an element of the catching-up process of the past decades, which has led to a growing economic convergence among OECD countries.     

The dynamics of public opinion under majority rules

This note explains the process of public opinion formation via a locally interactive, space-time analysis. The model we use is a special case of the general framework for modelling social interaction proposed in Blume and Durlauf (2001). In the reduced form of the model we study how each individual, when faced with the choice of one, out of two, opinions, tends to conform to the opinion held by the majority of her neighbours. We consider different, symmetric and asymmetric, majority rules. Depending on the specific behavioral rule, the aggregate process of opinion formation may display contagion on one specific opinion, or consensus among all individuals in the population, or co-existence of both opinions. Whenever consensus obtains, we observe the formation of homogeneous areas ( clusters) that seem almost stationary along the dynamics. The authors wish to thank A. Postelwaite and two anonymous referees for very helpful suggestions.     

The CEO Arms Race

This article constructs a game‐theoretic model in which high chief executive officer (CEO) pay emerges as the outcome of an arms race, with each firm hiring a highly paid CEO to protect its competitive position against rivals who also hire highly paid CEOs. For an arms race to emerge, highly paid CEOs must generate idiosyncratic, privately known internal effects on profit, and CEO pay disparities must also generate asymmetric profit differences from external effects beyond the simple differences in pay. If the distribution of internal effects satisfies a key uniformity condition, an arms race emerges as the only equilibrium of the game.     

An Impact Analysis of Microfinance in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This paper applies the financing constraints approach to study whether microfinance institutions improved access to credit for microenterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to this approach, microenterprises with improved access to credit rely less on internal funds for their investments. Thus, we compare investment sensitivity to internal funds of microenterprises in municipalities with significant presence of MFIs to that of microenterprises in municipalities with no (or limited) presence of MFIs using Living Standards Measurement Survey and MFI branch location data. Results indicate that MFIs alleviated microbusinesses’ financing constraints. This approach is applicable to evaluating microfinance impact in other countries.     

Towards a sustainable fashion retail supply chain in Europe: Organisation and performance

Sustainability issues are particularly sensitive to the fashion supply chain, given current fierce competition, intensive resource use, and the exposure of penurious labour conditions in some regions.In this paper, we discuss how the sustainability movement is impacting the fashion retail supply chain organisation and its performance. We carried out a study with stakeholders of the fashion industry and we report on their views. We elaborate on the challenges and conflicts of the different dimensions of sustainability, and we discuss how to leverage both the internal and external organisations in the European supply chain.     

Innovation ambidexterity of open firms. The role of internal relational social capital

The success of the open innovation (OI) paradigm is still debated and literature is searching for its determinants. Although firms’ internal social context is crucial to explain the success or failure of OI practices, such context is still poorly investigated. The aim of the paper is to analyse whether internal social capital (SC), intended as employees’ propensity to interact and work in groups in order to solve innovation issues, mediates the relationship between OI practices and innovation ambidexterity (IA). Results, based on a survey research developed in Finland, Italy and Sweden, suggest that collaborations with different typologies of partners (scientific and business) achieve good results in terms of IA, through the partial mediation of the internal SC.     

Macroeconomic determinants of remittances: evidence from Romania

Given the globalization of the labour market and the promotion of free movement for work, young people are looking for employment opportunities from at least two perspectives – professional careers and socio-economic benefits from employment. In developing countries, such as Romania, the labour market is less attractive, which has led to profound, numerical and structural imbalances, due to external mobility for work. Both new generations of graduates and young people aged up to 40 years, decide to work abroad as a more beneficial individual solution, i.e. remittances. The purpose of this paper is to examine the macroeconomic determinants of remittances to Romania, in order to substantiate public policies on diaspora, to adjust employment policy on the national labour market by promoting incentives to create decent, youth-friendly jobs. Using panel data model we selected several variables with potential influence on remittances level. The results demonstrate that traditional influence’s factors as distance, migration routes diaspora concentration or unemployment rate are, at present, less important than wage gap or tax rate at least for developing origin countries.