Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Export instability,expansion and market concentration: A methodological interpretation

An analysis of the interrelationships among export instability, expansion and market concentration exhibited by fourteen Western Pacific countries yields three important and meaningful results. There exists a positive and significant association firstly, between export instability and export growth, secondly between the latter and geographical concentration, and hence thirdly between export fluctuations and market concentration but not in any direct causal manner as has been postulated by the general ‘concensus’. There is also evidence that the United States and Japan tend to provide the best growth potential, as demand sources for exports from Western Pacific area, at least in the near future.     

Gibrat’s Law with Mild Nonrandom Growth

Gibrat’s Law (GL) has repeatedly failed to gain full empirical confirmation in specific industries. This study offers a deliberately favorable opportunity for full confirmation in the truckload sector of the U.S. trucking industry where firms are highly homogeneous. As such, most nonrandom determinants of growth remain very similar for all firms, so significant differences in growth rates are not expected. Still, there is only incomplete support: (1) long term growth rates are not equal for all firms, but the differences are small and not size-related except for the smallest firms, and (2) the size distributions better approximate lognormal when the smallest firms are excluded, but in no case does the variance rise over time. This suggests that for most other industries, where nonrandom growth should be much stronger, GL would seem unlikely to play more than a minor role in portraying actual firm growth or the evolution of market structure.     

Economic crisis: Management and innovative development issues

This article discusses the reasons for Russia’s vulnerability to the factors of the economic crisis. We propose a conception based on A.A. Bogdanov’s general theory of crisis and I. Shumpeter’s economic cycles. The concept involves crisis management as an alternative to traditional anticrisis approaches and the basis of a strategy for recovering from a crisis and the long-term innovative development of the economy.     

There is relevance in the classroom: Analysis of present methods of teaching business ethics

In 1988 the Journal of Business Ethics published a paper by David Mathison entitled Business Ethics Cases and Decision Models: A Call for Relevancy in the Classroom. Mathison argued that the present methods of teaching business ethics may be inappropriate for MBA students. He believes that faculty are teaching at one decision-making level and that students are and will be functioning on another (lower) level. The purpose of this paper is to respond to Mathison's arguments and offer support for the present methods and materials used to teach Master level ethics classes. The support includes suggested class discussion ideas and assignments.Victoria K. Strong is a graduate student at Bentley College. She returned to school to pursue a Master of Science in Accountancy after working in the engineering profession for 12 years. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1984. Her business experience includes positions as Mechanical Design Engineer and Unit Supervisor of an engineering development laboratory. Alan N. Hoffman is an Associate Professor of Management at Bentley College. He received his DBA from Indiana University. Dr. Hoffman's writing has been published in the Academy of Management Journal and Human Relations.The authors would like to thank Carolyn Colt and the entire spring 1988 MG520-class for their valuable contributions.     

The distribution of benefits from public international germplasm banks: the case of beans in Latin America

The unrestricted international flow of genetic resources from international genebank collections is the source of perhaps one of the greatest impacts of international agricultural research. This paper examines the distribution across countries in Latin America of benefits generated from bean genetic resources held by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The genealogies of commercial bean cultivars released since 1976, containing materials from the collection, are analysed to calculate for each country the source of the genetic resources used. All countries in the region are shown to be heavily dependent on imported genetic resources for their commercial cultivars. From the available information on the economic impact of these improved bean varieties, the share of economic productivity benefits associated with imported germplasm by country of origin is calculated. The benefits received by each country from improved bean germplasm are compared with the contribution of that country's germplasm to other countries. Some of the patterns in the flow and use of genetic resources are analysed.     

Managing customer relationships. The challenge of deploying scarce managerial resources

In industrial markets many managers from marketing, technical service and production functions interact with customers. How should these managers be allocated to an evolving array of customers? This paper reports on the customer visits made by the managers of one packaging supplier. The visits of the marketing people seem related to the financial significance of the customer, whereas the technical visits are best understood by a ‘portfolio’ approach. At the same time many idiosyncratic and situational factors affect resource deployments.