Implanting competitive strategy: A contingency approach

Competitive business strategies are often formulated with little regard given to the articulation format. This paper examines the strategy formulation process from a systems perspective and argues that articulation of a competitive strategy, such that sustained competitive advantage is created, requires consistency along the entire business chain. Internal consistency within the business chain is built through inter‐linkages. The inter‐linkages are made through four inter‐connective elements: human resources, technological resources, information resources and financial resources. It is argued in this paper that the human factor is of major importance since it integrates the other inter‐connective elements and therefore represents a key factor in the process of articulation and implementation. In view of the critical role of the human element in articulation of business strategy for competitive advantage, the paper develops a human‐factor related contingency framework. The developed contingency framework examines Porter's (1980, 1985) generic strategies with respect to congruent requisites necessary for building competitive advantage.     

UNDERSTANDING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL AND EURO AREA OUTPUT VOLATILITY

This paper addresses two main questions. First, it seeks to establish whether the stylized facts of the ‘great moderation’ that have been documented for the UK and US economies can be found for the Euro area. Second, it explores possible explanations for any changes that have occurred in the volatility of Euro area output fluctuations. In examining why business cycles have moderated, much of the existing literature has tended to concentrate on a few key factors. These include shifts in the structure of the economy, improved monetary policy and a ‘good luck’ factor. This paper, however, follows a relatively new branch of the great moderation literature by focusing on whether international business cycle linkages have changed in a way that may have perpetuated the dampening in Euro area output fluctuations. The results show Euro area output fluctuations to have significantly reduced in variability over the last quarter of a century. The results go on to highlight that, although Euro area cycles differ little from rest of the world cycles, the moderation in Euro area output fluctuations is only marginally due to changes in international business cycle linkages and smaller international and domestic shock variances.     

McCloskey, economics as conversation, and Sprachethik

In writing about the 'rhetoric of economics' - particularlyabout the standards which prevent situations where 'anythinggoes' in argument - McCloskey takes an eclectic approach totwo philosophical positions, based on Rorty and Habermas respectively.But these positions, despite sharing some common aspects, alsodifferentiate themselves from each other sharply in importantways. In this paper, it is argued that this eclecticism of McCloskeyis not coherent, as a result of her not completely graspingthe fundamental differences between these two positions, andthat this incoherence has damaging implications for her projectof the rhetoric of economics.     

Energy,unemployment and trade

This article investigates the dynamic relationships among sectoral economic activities, macro expenditure patterns, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and unemployment in 41 countries from 1980 to 2014. The state of the art econometric techniques, both linear and non-linear panel and time series estimation techniques are used. The results show that industrialization, services sector, government expenditure and trade openness play a positive role in reducing unemployment, while agriculture and renewable energy consumption increase unemployment. This might be, in part, due to recent technological advancements and large capital intensive investments in agriculture and renewable energy sectors. Therefore, dedicated social and labour market policies need to be adopted to complement greening economic policies.     

Fiscal stance,the current account and the real exchange rate: Some empirical estimates from a time-varying framework

This paper examines the time-varying time series processes of the interaction between government fiscal deficits, the current account balance and the real exchange rate for the U.K. and U.S. economies. This is achieved in a novel way by estimating a time-varying vector autoregression model that allows for time variation in the stochastic variance and autoregressive parameters. This paper finds that, contrary to results reported in the recent literature, government deficit shocks worsen the U.S. current account balance. In contrast, results based on the historical time series for the U.K. show evidence of fiscal deficits having actually improved the current account balance. However, in commonality, the time-varying estimates show that the impact of fiscal deficits on the U.K. and U.S. current account balance has fallen in magnitude over the past 20 years. The time-varying variance decomposition results illustrate that fiscal deficit shocks played a key role in driving U.K. current account and real exchange rate fluctuations throughout the 1980s. In contrast, fiscal deficit shocks have been a small factor in the variation of U.S. current account and exchange rate fluctuations over the past 25 years. The time-varying results in this paper do not support the view that future fiscal deficit reductions alone can eliminate U.K. and U.S. current account imbalances.     

Mortgage‐Backed Securities (MBS): Is It a Curse or a Blessing for the Australian Home Loan Market? A Natural Experiment

The Australian home loan market has seen a significant and persistent boom over more than two decades. The extant literature exploring the underlying factors explaining this boom has predominantly looked at the demand side rather than the supply side. In this paper, we look at a major supply‐side issue, the introduction of mortgage‐backed securities and its likely impact on the home loan market. In doing so, we have developed a mathematical model that theorises this likely relationship. Our mathematical model predicts possible existence of an unstable equilibrium in the home loan market in the presence of mortgage‐backed securities. We have subsequently backed up our theoretical exercise with sound empirical evidence acquired and analysed as a natural experiment in the Australian scenario using quarterly market data on home loans and mortgage‐backed securities data for a 36‐year period from 1976 to 2012. Using unknown structural break tests, we have identified significant breaks around late 1992 to mid‐1995, clearly indicating that there were significant changes in the housing market due to the introduction of mortgage‐backed securities in early 1993. We have also performed a stability test confirming that under certain conditions this market can become unstable.     

Price formation on stock exchanges: the evolution of trading within the day

Prior analyses of prices of the NYSE and other exchanges findthat transitory price volatility is greater at the open of tradingthan at the close. We extend this line of research by using40 years of hourly Dow Jones 65 composite price index data toestimate transitory volatility throughout the trading day. Ourresults indicate that transitory volatility steadily declinesduring the trading day. We find a similar intraday decline intransitory volatility for a 2-year sample of the individualfirms in the Dow Jones 30 Industrials Index. The results areconsistent with the hypothesis that trading aids price formationand do not support the argument that particular trading mechanismsare the source of greater volatility at the open of trading.     

Does urbanization increase pollutant emission and energy intensity? evidence from some Asian developing economies

This paper aims to investigate the effects of urbanization on pollutant emissions and energy intensity in selected Asian developing countries after controlling for the effects of disaggregated (renewable and non-renewable) energy consumption, trade liberalization, and economic growth. We use both linear and nonlinear panel data econometric techniques and employ recently introduced mean group estimation methods, allowing for heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. However, to check the robustness of our panel results, we also apply the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL)-bound testing approach to country-level data. In addition, the relationship between affluence and CO₂ emissions is examined in the context of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. The estimation results identify the population, affluence, and non-renewable energy consumption as major factors in pollutant emissions in Asian countries. However, the results of the EKC hypothesis show that when countries achieve a certain level of economic growth, their emissions tend to decline. Whereas nonlinear results show that renewable energy, urbanization, and trade liberalization reduce emissions, linear estimations do not confirm these outcomes. Thus, substitution of non-renewable for renewable energy consumption, cautious and planned urbanization programs and more liberal trading regimes may be viable options for sustainable growth of these developing Asian economies.     

The dimensions of assortment: A proposed hierarchy of assortment decision making

Abstract

The merchandise assortment plays a fundamental role in retailing; it conveys the positioning of the retailer, and is a key determinant of image and patronage. However, existing literature covering a 50-year period is somewhat fragmented. A key problem with the literature is that it does not distinguish between different levels and dimensions of assortment, causing potential ambiguity in their interpretation in the modern retailing context. The lack of standardised terminology could potentially inhibit future assortment research in, for example, assortment measurement. In reviewing the literature, the critical dimensions of assortment are clarified with conceptual definitions and a hierarchical classification of assortment being proposed. Further, the assortment research is examined, identifying an imbalance between operational and strategic assortment research. As retail assortments expand and saturate, the need for assortment measurement research is argued with associated implications for retail management.     

MEASURING CUSTOMERS' PERCEPTIONS OF LOGISTICS SERVICE QUALITY OF 3PL SERVICE PROVIDERS

Despite its importance, with the major exception of Mentzer and colleagues, the development and measurement of the Logistics Service Quality construct (LSQ) has been relatively under researched. This paper reports the testing and validation of the LSQ instrument (Mentzer, Flint, and Kent 1999) in the context of the third‐party logistics industry in the UK. The 3PL setting was considered a logical progression for testing the instrument versus the original in‐house logistics service provider. The study is based on a cross sectional mail survey of the customers of third‐party logistics service providers.