Shutting up shop: understanding the international exit process in retailing

Internationalisation is a much-studied phenomenon. Exit from international markets has been less analysed. Where it has been studied, most work has been on motives and causes, with relatively little on processes. This article explores the process of international exit in a retail context. It examines the run-up to, announcement of and fall-out from the decision by Marks and Spencer (one of Britain's leading retailers) to close its French stores. The article concludes that understanding the process of market exit is at least as important both for theoretical and practical reasons as understanding the decision to exit or divest. Further research needs to be undertaken on market exit and the processes involved, in order to contribute further to the theory and practice of internationalisation.     

Real-Time Forecasting Revisited: Letting the Data Decide

Real-time GDP forecasting, also often known as “nowcasting,” produces estimates for current-quarter real GDP growth, typically based on a centered value from a set of estimates from incoming indicators. These real-time measures are usually intended to be data-based and to not be based on forecaster judgment or add factors. Even so, estimation methodologies in this research area—and prior versions of the system we use—typically have been constrained by using various “fixed” relationships, such as a fixed historical sample horizon and fixed empirical specifications for the indicator variables. This paper describes the methodology, estimation, and software code for a more flexible real-time GDP system that allows the data to decide the best real-time GDP forecast for varying sample horizons and varying specifications for each indicator variable through time. Our system uses data on key indicators as they become available (accounting for the “jagged-edge” nature of the data in the current quarter) to generate an estimate of current-quarter real GDP growth, with weights for combining the indicator-specific estimates as determined by the strength of the indicators’ historical relationships to GDP growth. The improved system searches across a variety of specifications and across sample horizons to choose the best specification as determined by a minimum Schwarz criterion test while also searching for the best sample horizon for minimizing the mean absolute error for a recent prediction period. We illustrate the operation of the system for real-time estimates of real GDP growth over a specific quarter, and examine the properties of the estimates and the implications for predictions. We also discuss potential additional applications and demonstrate a specific application for real-time predictions of the monthly change in payroll jobs.     

Smokeless tobacco,smoking cessation and harm reduction: an economic analysis

Good estimates place ‘hard core’ smoking rates in the United States at approximately 25%, with little change over the decade of the 1990s. This paper examines the possibilities of ‘harm reduction’ with the use of smokeless tobacco. Specifically, using an econometric model we seek to determine whether an increase in the use of smokeless tobacco would lead to reduced smoking rates in the United States. Applying our model to the NHANES III (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) we find that the use of smokeless tobacco by an average U.S. male smoker would increase the average probability of smoke cessation by over 10%. Approximately 3 million additional ‘quits’ would result for 26 million smokers. Our study permits an examination of cessation by age groups and we find that males who use smokeless tobacco between 16 and 65 have a 10–14% probability of quitting but that the probability falls beyond age 66. Important implications for life extension and health costs would attend these results with, under conservative assumptions, life years saved approximating 2.16 million and health care cost-savings of about $3 billion per year.     

Supply Chain Management Competency and Firm Financial Success

Supply chain management (SCM) plays a major role in creating (or destroying) shareholder value by influencing the three major drivers of firm financial performance: revenue, operating costs, and working capital. Yet, the relationship between SCM competency and firm financial performance is not well‐established. Drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm, this study assesses this relationship using Delphi‐style opinion data from AMR Research’s Supply Chain Top 25 rankings to assess SCM competency and Altman’s (1968) Z‐score statistic as the measure of financial success. The study findings show that firms recognized by industry experts for SCM competency have significantly higher Z‐scores than their close competitors and industry averages.     

Are immigrants really attracted to the welfare state? Evidence from OECD countries

This paper examines the impact of fiscal policies on both the size and educational levels of immigrants in destination countries. We find that whether or not a country’s policies are attracting highly educated immigrants goes beyond the issue of the “welfare state”. Immigrants are making important distinctions between the different benefits provided by a receiving country’s government. Health and education spending are found to have a positive impact on the education levels of immigrants while the reverse is true for unemployment and retirement benefits. Welfare programs are found to be insignificant once other government programs/taxes and other factors are taken into account. These results imply that countries should be less concerned about whether they are a “big government” with regards to attracting immigrants, and more concerned with what types of benefits they offer.     

The management of people across cultures: Valuing people differently

Ethnocentric and parochial human resource systems have been called into question as obstacles to globalization. This is addressed here by examining the way value is attached to people in organizations across cultures. Western managers and HR practitioners who work with affiliates in non‐Western emerging countries should particularly be aware of differences in “locus of human value.” Policies and practices developed in the West along instrumental lines see people primarily as a means to an end. This may be directly opposed to a humanistic view of human value that sees people as having a value in themselves. To provide support for these assumptions, an exploratory study across seven nations was carried out. Its findings indicate potentially important implications for global HRM policies and practices. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Strikes in Scotland

Historically Scotland has been seen as more strike prone than the UK although changes have taken place in recent years. This article looks at strike trends between 1965 and 1985 and examines a number of possible explanations for them.