The international diffusion of biotechnology: the arrival of developing countries

According to conventional economic theory, countries tend to converge in economic and technological terms towards the leader. More recently, empirical approaches by economic historians (Abramovitz, Landes, Madison, Reinert) have found that while some countries are catching up, others are falling increasingly behind. Several theories compete to explain the precise mechanisms that explain how technological diffusion takes place. The paper reviews them and draws testable hypotheses for the study of international biotechnology diffusion. Biotechnologies are one of the leading sets of technologies developed in the late 20th century. They encompass applications in agriculture, chemicals, environment and pharmaceuticals. The United States has led the way in both scientific and industrial development of biotechnologies and these have quickly spread to Canada, Japan and Western Europe. Are the main developing countries adopting biotechnology? A study of the adoption of human health biotechnology in eight developing countries in Asia (China, India, Korea, and Singapore) and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) was conducted, based on the analysis of in situ interviews, patents and scientific publication. The study shows a marked process of adoption and learning in science: each of the above-mentioned developing countries is increasing its share of world publication between 1996 and 2008. However, their share of biotechnology patents for the same period has barely increased. There are also regional differences in terms of sectoral concentration; Latin America, Argentina and Brazil are eager adopters of agricultural biotechnology and are moving up in the pharmaceutical records. Several Argentinean, Chinese, Indian, and South Korean pharmaceutical companies have been particularly active in the development of biogenerics.     

A netnographic sensibility: developing the netnographic/social listening boundaries

Netnography is constantly evolving as technologies and access to online data develop. Our paper outlines how large data sets of social media can be analysed through bridging the divide between the small, rich and contextually nuanced data that is the hallmark of netnography and the scope and scale of data made possible through social media listening conventions. We define this approach as netnographic sensibility and with the use of a short case study discuss the process through which social media data could be gathered, triangulated and analysed. We orientate the paper around two interrelated questions: investigating how netnographic insights can be extended using social media monitoring tools, and asking how this can be used to add richness and depth to understanding mass consumer realities. Our contribution complements the widely established methodological approach of netnography as we argue that netnography has the capacity and capability to embrace technological advances within the domain of social listening to add value for academic researchers.     

Fashionable subjects and complicity resistance: power,subjectification, and bounded resistance in the context of plus-size consumers

ABSTRACT

The relationship between consumer governability and consumer resistance has received increasing attention in consumer research, especially with regard to consumers’ physical bodies. However, a deeper understanding of how consumers juxtapose different forms and strategies of governability with respect to which discourses they embody or resist is necessary. Through an analysis of various sources of data, including interviews, fashion blogs, an online retailer’s website, and a fashion magazine, we explore the nuances between processes of subjectification and resistance in the fashion field by considering the multiple powers that act on overweight female consumers’ bodies. We demonstrate the complicated process by which these vulnerable consumers attempt to establish themselves as fashionable subjects as they move between adherence to expectations (biopower and subjectification) and resistance when faced with the impossibility of subjectification in a creative-agentic manner. Finally, we propose the idea of complicit resistance. This resistance only partially confronts the strategies of biopower in the process of subjectification because it is limited by a threshold imposed by biopower.     

Coberturas financieras con derivados y su incidencia en el valor de mercado en empresas colombianas que cotizan en Bolsa

The financial theory (Modigliani & Miller, 1958) rises that risk management was not an issue for companies because shareholders could make their own hedging management through portfolio diversification; however, further studies conflict with that statement and show that corporate financial hedging improves performance and increases the value thereof (Ahmed, Azevedo, & Guney, 2014; Allayannis & Weston, 2001; Allayannis & Ofek, 1998). Efficient management of market risks, which is based on the use of financial derivatives, demands strategic and efficient managers in hedging that adds value to the firm, especially in against shocks and imbalances from a macroeconomic and financial nature. Empirical evidence analyzes the performance of the Q-Tobin as an indicator of the effect of hedging strategies of exchange rate associated to the market value. This paper aims to find evidence in Colombia on the effect of using derivatives in the market value of the firm. Its added value lies in the analysis made by economic sectors, identified by CIIU codes and grouped into 5 sectors (Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial or Manufacturing, Services and Construction). The methodology includes several models estimating regression panel data, using a Pooled regression with estimators of fixed and random effects by maximum likelihood estimator. In general, it was found a premium due to hedging, statistically and financially significant, for companies exposed to exchange rate risks that use derivatives by an average of 6.3% on the market value. Moreover, mixed results were found regarding the analyzed variables in the model.     

Private Wealth in a Developing Country:Evidence from South Africa

The point of departure of Piketty's influential Capital in the Twenty‐First Century (2014) was the dramatic growth of private wealth‐income ratios in advanced economies between 1970 and 2010. Using official balance sheet data for South Africa—the first country to publish such data in the developing world—, this paper examines to what extent this re‐emergence of private wealth was also experienced in the developing‐country context. First, we find that the South African current wealth‐income ratio is very close to its 1975 level, and much lower than those of Piketty's sample of advanced economies. Second, we show that the discrepancy is explained not only by South Africa's relatively low savings rates, but also by the reduction of wealth before and during the transition to democracy in the 1990s. Since then, private wealth recovered significantly, but the U‐shaped relationship does not support the argument that there is a clear correlation between the capital‐income ratio and capital share.     

Closed-End Funds: A Survey

This survey reviews the evolving literature on closed-end fund discounts. Many studies have attempted to explain the existence and the behavior of the discount to net asset value, emphasizing biases in the calculation of NAV, agency costs, tax-timing options and market segmentation. None has been able to provide a full explanation. As a result, some researchers have found it necessary to resort to models of limited rationality. This gives rise to potential opportunities for exploiting the discount. We summarize the findings from over 70 studies of closed-end funds, and present directions for future research.     

Value priorities of HRD scholars and practitioners

This study represents an initial effort to identify and measure a set of values that reflect the goals that human resource development (HRD) scholars and practitioners believe HRD should strive to achieve. Six values reflecting two value facets (locus of HRD influence and HRD outcomes) and a seventh value that relates to a perceived normative component inherent of HRD activity were identified and measured. Results indicated the value scales measured individual value priorities of HRD scholars and practitioners, and that the structure of these value priorities varied as a function of individual differences. Suggestions for future research are offered.