Conformism and diversity under social learning

Summary. When there are competing technologies or products with unknown payoffs an important question is which technology will prevail and whether technologies with different payoffs can coexist in the long run. In this paper, we use a social learning model with local interactions to study this question. We show that the adoption of technologies as well as the prospects of conformism/diversity depend crucially on the nature of interaction between individuals and the heterogeneity of preferences in a society. Received: May 10, 1999; revised version: February 4, 2000     

China's outward foreign direct investment: Location choice and firm ownership

This article evaluates the international location decisions made by public listed Chinese firms during the period 2006-2008, using a Poisson count data regression model. Further, we categorize the firms into state-controlled and privately owned according to majority ownership. We find that the determinants of internationalization differ based on ownership. State-controlled firms are attracted to countries with large sources of natural resources and risky political environments. Private firms are more market seekers. Although all firms have strategic intent, the attraction is commercially viable technology rather than core research content. Our findings also show that existing theories can sufficiently explain the actions of private Chinese firms, but adjustments are needed to understand the behavior of state-controlled multinationals.     

中国能否取代新加坡成为亚洲石油贸易中心

成为亚洲石油贸易与定价中心必须有发育的市场和价格发现机制，而最主要的前提条件是市场完全开放、政府对企业不进行行政干预，竞争机制完善等。此外，信息和数据应能实现快速准确的传递。新加坡能够成为亚洲石油定价中心有多方面的原因：新加坡有100多年的石油贸易历史；位于世界主要贸易航线，且海运发达，港口吞吐能力强，转运石油非常方便，成本较低；拥有庞大的独立存储石油的能力与完善的物流系统；新加坡是极少数的政府不干预石油行业的国家，有法制的传统，在法律面前人人平等。如果亚洲炼油行业在未来几年内恢复活力，新加坡能够恢复其炼油中心的地位。因此，目前在亚洲还没有任何一个地方可替代新加坡，新加坡作为主要的石油贸易中心以及亚洲石油价格中心，其地位将继续保持。     

Maintaining Leadership Legitimacy in the Transition to New Organizational Forms

Numerous new organizational forms have been proposed for ensuring the continuous strategic renewal of a firm. In essence, these forms are distinguished by: (1) their emphasis on bottom-up entrepreneurship, and (2) their reliance on a co-operative network that allows these entrepreneurial units to share their competencies with one another. One of the key behaviours required for the success of such an organization is employee empowerment. We argue in this paper that the legitimacy of corporate leadership during the restructuring of a traditional bureaucratic organization is crucial to its eventual transformation to one of the new organizational forms. The current wisdom of a two-stage transformation process, where an authoritarian restructuring precedes the more participative revitalization, is thus challenged. The transformation may get stalled after the restructuring stage because of top management’s inability to empower the firm’s employees at will, having lost their trust during restructuring     

A strategic analysis of network reliability

Abstract. We consider a non-cooperative model of information networks where communication is costly and not fully reliable. We examine the nature of Nash networks and efficient networks. We find that if the society is large, and link formation costs are moderate, Nash networks as well as efficient networks will be ‘super-connected’ i.e. every link is redundant in the sense that the network remains connected even after the link is deleted. This contrasts with the properties of a deterministic model of information decay, where Nash networks typically involve unique paths between agents. We also find that if costs are very low or very high, or if links are highly reliable then there is virtually no conflict between efficiency and stability. However, for intermediate values of costs and link reliability, Nash networks may be underconnected relative to the social optimum.     

An assessment framework for public urban land management intervention

The ability to manage land effectively depends on the availability of accurate and up to date information on it. Many cities, particularly those in the developing world, lack the means to generate the information needed to support land management. This paper proposes the use of assessment studies as a mechanism to generate information for land management. A model of the public land management system and a framework of steps and issues for carrying out an assessment study are presented. The paper also presents an overview of the common problems of land management in the developing world and a case study to illustrate the utility of the proposed framework.