Marketing aspects of environmental practices of multinational enterprises in host countries: A Brazilian case study

This article investigates both the marketing and the production activities of a multinational enterprise (MNE) operating in the Brazilian chemical industry. The case chosen illustrates how the MNE has managed to adapt or to upgrade some of its main policies, programs, production activities, and products in conformity with both its long-term strategic positioning and the host country's environmental regulatory policy. The company established two effective environmental programs that deserve mention. One of the programs has been set up to generate receipts through the provision of environmental services for a price. The other one pursued systematic procedures to better serve clients through customized applications of waste reduction practices. The latter reveals how proactive companies may profit from effectively envisaging the whole product cycle along their value chain. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The ‘disguised’ foreign investor: Brands,trademarks and the British expatriate entrepreneur in Brazil

Abstract

This article examines the impact of the British expatriate entrepreneur, and his processes of knowledge transfer, on the industrialization and economic development of Brazil between 1875 and 1914. It focuses on the textiles industry, and combines original trademark data with conventional trade and investment statistics, and also case study analysis about firms and their entrepreneurs. It argues that British investment in Brazil was higher and had a deeper impact on economic development than considered by existing research, as expatriate entrepreneurs ‘disguised’ a substantial amount of foreign investments by acting as shareholders and top managers of newly established local businesses.     

OPTIONS AND EFFICIENCY IN MULTIDATE SECURITY MARKETS

This paper extends the work of Ross (1976; Q. J. Econ. (90)1, 75–89) to multidate security markets. First, we show that if a primitive security separates states at the terminal date, then there exist multiperiod European options on that security generating dynamically complete markets. Second, we show that if a primitive security conditionally separates states at the terminal date, then there exist multiperiod European options on that security generating generically dynamically complete markets provided that certain conditions hold. Third, we show that there are economies for which the minimum number of multiperiod European options on a primitive security generating generically dynamically complete markets is relatively large. Finally, we show that in these economies, a relatively small number of multiperiod European options on possibly different portfolio strategies of primitive securities generates generically dynamically complete markets.     

Modeling Ethical Business Culture: Development of the Ethical Business Culture Survey and Its Use to Validate the CEBC Model of Ethical Business Culture

This article reports the results of research to develop a survey instrument and its use to validate an ethical business culture construct (CEBC Model). The reported three-stage quantitative study builds on our previous qualitative work, aimed at identifying dimensions of ethical business cultures. The research resulted in a parsimonious construct, covering five dimensions of ethical business cultures, and a ten-question instrument, measuring this construct. In this article, we report results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and convergent construct validity testing, discuss the potential applications of the construct and instrument in assessment and development of ethical business cultures, and provide recommendations for industry practitioners and for further research.     

The Impact of an EU–US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement on Biofuel and Feedstock Markets

We assess the impact of a potential TTIP bilateral free trade agreement on the EU and US bio‐economies (feedstock, biofuels, by‐products, and related competing crops) and major trade partners in these markets. The analysis develops a multi‐market model that incorporates bilateral trade flows (US to EU, EU to US, and similarly with third countries) and is calibrated to the OECD‐FAO baseline for 2013–2022 to account for recent policy decisions. The major policy reforms from a TTIP involve tariff and TRQ liberalisation and their direct contractionary impact on US sugar supply, EU biofuel production, and indirect negative effect on US high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) production. EU sugar and isoglucose production expand along with US ethanol and biodiesel and oilseed crushing. EU sugar would flow to the US, US biofuels and vegetable oil to the EU. We further quantify non‐tariff measures (NTM) affecting these trade flows between the EU and the US. EU oilseed production contracts, and EU crushing expands with improving crushing margins following reduced NTM frictions. Our analysis reveals limited net welfare gains with most net benefits reaped by Brazil and not the two trading partners of the TTIP.     

A continuous model for supply planning of assembly systems with stochastic component procurement times

This paper studies a customized product assembly scenario where some components cannot be stocked due to high component cost and risk. We consider the case where these key components are ordered after a demand has been registered with a promised delivery date. Component lead-times are stochastic and associated distribution function is known in advance. The objective is to determine the ordering time for each component such as to minimize the sum of expected holding and backlogging costs. An approach to solve this problem is proposed and the algorithm is tested on a randomly generated data set.     

Determinants of performance of independent financial advisors

This paper examines the performance of independent financial advisors (IFAs) in terms of their involvement in innovation activities, participation in business networks and open innovation as a strategy to cope with difficult market conditions caused by the recent economic downturn. Performance is assessed on the basis of average sales growth for years 2010–2012. The results of the study suggest that IFAs’ involvement in innovation activities, participation in networks and open innovation enhances business performance. The managerial implications are that IFAs may be able to achieve higher sales growth by participating in networks and engaging in innovation activities. The originality of this paper is that it provides an empirical assessment of possible strategies to support sales growth in small financial service sector firms facing volatile market conditions.     

Illicit Drug Use,Employment, and Labor Force Participation

Illicit drug use has declined among the U.S. adult population, but national surveys show the majority of illicit drug users are employed. Concern about workplace productivity, absenteeism, and safety has led many employers to establish employee assistance and drug testing programs. Given the sharp interest in workplace interventions, more information is needed about the relationships between drug use and labor market status. This study estimated the probability of employment and labor force participation for different types of drug users using nationally representative data from the 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Results strongly indicated that chronic drug use was significantly related (negative) to employment for both genders and labor force participation for males. Furthermore, nonchronic drug use was not significantly related to employment or labor force participation. These findings suggest that workplace policies for illicit drug use should consider chronic or problem drug users apart from light or casual users.     

Financial prediction with constrained tail risk

A new class of asymmetric loss functions derived from the least absolute deviations or least squares loss with a constraint on the mean of one tail of the residual error distribution, is introduced for analyzing financial data. Motivated by risk management principles, the primary intent is to provide “cautious” forecasts under uncertainty. The net effect on fitted models is to shape the residuals so that on average only a prespecified proportion of predictions tend to fall above or below a desired threshold. The loss functions are reformulated as objective functions in the context of parameter estimation for linear regression models, and it is demonstrated how optimization can be implemented via linear programming. The method is a competitor of quantile regression, but is more flexible and broader in scope. An application is illustrated on prediction of NDX and SPX index returns data, while controlling the magnitude of a fraction of worst losses.     

Swiss banking secrecy: the stock market evidence

We examine the stock price reactions of four Swiss banks to negotiations between Switzerland and the European Union and between Switzerland and the United States to (i) obtain an estimate of the value of banking secrecy to Swiss banks, and (ii) distinguish between tax evasion and genuine privacy concerns as sources of that value. We find that the value of banking secrecy to the private banks is large, accounting for 8 to 14% of their market value; in contrast, the value of banking secrecy to the universal banks is small. We further find that tax evasion may be less important and privacy concerns more important a source of value of banking secrecy than might previously have been thought.