Factors affecting the external debt-servicing capacity of African nations: An empirical investigation

While there have been a vast number of studies and international discussions on developing nations’ debt servicing capacity, not much attention has been focused on the African dimension. This article examines the determinants of debt reschedulings for forty-five African nations over the twelve-year period 1976 to 1987. A logit model of the macroeconomic variables affecting the probability of rescheduling is developed. The findings indicate that debt-service ratio, reserves to imports ratio, debt-service payments to capital inflow ratio, GDP growth rate, rate of domestic inflation, and net government deficit to GDP ratio are important indicators of debt servicing capacity. The overall results, while providing strong support for some of the often-mentioned causes of the African debt crisis, are seen to hold useful possibilities for both the debtor countries and international creditors.     

Sustainability-oriented Service Innovation: fourteen-year longitudinal case study of a tourist accommodation provider

Abstract

Progressing sustainable tourism requires both an innovative transition from “unsustainable” tourism and innovative research methods to develop theory and concepts for a sustainable tourism. While there are many ad hoc examples of initiatives, there are very few examples of firms systematically recording their medium-term evolutionary progress. This case study of an accommodation provider uses longitudinal data over 14 years, deductive and inductive methods, and comparison with other similar eco-friendly providers, to provide the first exploration of sustainability-oriented innovation by a firm attempting to make transitions. Findings show how important hindsight and insight are for continuous learning, and how broader community sustainability issues influence the owners’ worldviews. Both learning and changing views are required to support innovation. A Sustainability-oriented Service Innovation model is recommended, recognising the characteristics of a service industry where innovation can be an organic process led by humans for humans and consequently more fuzzy in its progress than the clearly defined steps that are suggested by previous research. This model seeks to assist researchers and practitioners to better measure innovative progress of service firms, and develop more relevant strategies to ease transitions towards sustainable business practices.     

The challenge of optical fibres

Optical fibre technology can supply enormous bandwidth to meet the demands of the ever expanding telecommunications services. It has been said that they are the biggest competitors to satellites. This article outlines the history of optical fibres and how they work, and compares the benefits of both optical fibres and satellites for the communications market of the future. Geostationary satellites offer a global interconnectivity from both mobile and fixed points. Optical fibres offer heavy routing of both voice and data messages, freedom from interference, and cost advantages. The authors conclude that both will survive.     

A comparison of product costing practices in discrete-part and assembly manufacturing and continuous production process manufacturing

Research into product costing practice has not studied whether there are differences in product costing practice between different types of manufacturing. This paper compares the product costing practices of operating units in discrete-part and assembly manufacturing, and continuous production process manufacturing. The results show that there are few differences in product costing practices between these two manufacturing methods. Similar proportions of operating units in these two manufacturing environments use similar methods to treat overheads and have similar experiences of activity-based costing. The only area of difference is in the use of overhead rates where significantly more units in discrete-part and assembly manufacturing use a direct labour hour rate and significantly more units in continuous production process manufacturing use units produced and production time-based rates.     

Incentive Compensation and the Likelihood of Termination: Theory and Evidence from Real Estate Organizations

We analyze two managerial compensation incentive devices: the threat of termination and pay for performance. We first develop a simple model predicting that these devices are substitutes: when termination incentives are low, optimal contracts provide stronger pay‐for‐performance incentives. We then use data from real estate organizations to provide two independent tests of the model’s central prediction. First, we use the fact that chief executive officers of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and general partners of Real Estate Limited Partnerships (RELPs) perform similar tasks, yet organizational features of RELPs ensure that the latter are much harder to terminate. Consistent with the model, we find that pay‐for‐performance sensitivity is much higher for general partners of RELPs, where the termination threat is less credible. Second, we use a recent cross‐section of REITs to show that in property types where it is expected to be more costly to replace managers, those managers have stronger pay‐for‐performance incentives.     

Testing the transparency benefits of inflation targeting: Evidence from private sector forecasts

Using inflation forecast data for 11 IT adoption countries, IT adoption is found to promote convergence in forecast errors, suggesting that it enhances transparency. This result, which is subjected to several robustness checks and found to be robust, supports Morris and Shin's (2002) contention that better public information is most beneficial for forecasters with bad private information. However, it does not support their hypothesis that better public information could make private forecasts less accurate.     

The impact of innovation intensity,scope, and spillovers on sales growth in Chinese firms

We investigate the relationship between innovation and sales growth of firms in China. Innovation theories suggest firms create the technological knowledge needed to have market impact with their products and drive sales growth in different ways. These include: (1) through firms’ overall innovation intensity, (2) through decisions on innovation scope (depth vs. diversity), and (3) through knowledge spillovers from technological neighbors. Little research exists on how effective these approaches are for emerging market firms in pursuit of growth. To address this, we integrate and test the effects of these different knowledge creation mechanisms using data from Chinese firms over a five-year period. Findings show that innovation intensity and knowledge spillovers positively impact sales growth. We also develop and test a model capturing the non-linear impact of innovation scope. As predicted, we find a U-shaped relationship for depth of innovation and an inverted U-shaped relationship for diversity of innovation.     

HRM and performance: the vulnerability of soft HRM practices during recession and retrenchment

This multi‐method case explores how change in HRM implementation can impact performance metrics in a recessionary climate. Qualitative HR outcome data are mapped against financial metrics to explore adoption of hard‐line HRM practices in a major UK retailer. Despite record profits throughout the recession, the organisation responded strategically to worsening conditions in the labour market, firstly to maintain operational flexibility, but then to opportunistically enlarge jobs and intensify work to help achieve immediate gains in financial metrics, including a gain of 37 per cent in profit per employee over 3 years. These gains were achieved by derailing commitment‐based approaches to HRM, pointing towards the vulnerability of soft HRM systems during times of austerity or retrenchment.     

Private-Value Auction Versus Posted-Price Selling: An Agent-Based Model Approach

An agent-based first-price private-value auction and an agent-based posted-price market are developed to compare these selling methods when buyers have private values. If the seller cannot impose a reserve price and has little uncertainty about the item's value, the seller's expected revenue is highest in the posted-price market. Otherwise, the seller is better off selling the item with the auction. Using a genetic algorithm and Monte Carlo integration solved the agent-based models quicker and provided more precise answers than solving models with particle swarm optimization and using the trapezoidal rule for numerical integration. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.