Using voice analysis for analyzing bargaining processes in industrial marketing

Marketing processes on capital goods markets are often characterized as bargaining processes. Bargaining behavior is influenced by cognitive as well as activating factors. This article is concerned with the development of a new concept to measure the activation component by using voice analysis as an activational indicator. Literature concerning voice analysis is reviewed and two experiments are reported to support the hypothesis that the voice pitch may be used as a valid activational indicator.     

The dynamics of long-term growth

The authors have studied the effect of tool-making on man's evolution. They argue that growth is not exponential, but hyperbolic, and that a positive feedback exists linking technological development to population. Exploring the nature of this mechanism in order to improve the predictive capability of global models is the goal of the article.     

A New Global Index of Infrastructure: Construction,Rankings and Applications

We construct comprehensive and comparable indices on the most relevant components of economic infrastructure. An unobserved components model is employed to cover the largest possible number of developing and developed countries over the period 1990–2010. We map major findings from the new indices of infrastructure and provide country rankings, which we also compare with subjective assessments of infrastructure in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report. Finally, we exemplify possible applications related to trade and foreign aid. By overcoming several data limitations, our new global index can help assess the links between infrastructure and economic development more systematically.     

Flexibility: The next competitive battle the manufacturing futures survey

Over the past 4 years research teams from INSEAD (Fontainebleau), Boston University and Waseda University (Tokyo) have administered a yearly survey on the manufacturing strategy of the large manufacturers of the three industrialized regions of the world. In this paper the results for the 1986 survey are compared. One of the most striking results of that year's survey is the emphasis some of the more advanced manufacturers put on their efforts to overcome the trade-off between flexibility and cost efficiency. In particular for the Japanese respondents these attempts become clear. Europeans and North Americans are not yet seizing the opportunity to cut costs through rapid production and design changes, and are focusing more on traditional cost reduction programmes and the improvement of quality. This might mean that they are preparing the basis on which they can built to obtain added value from flexible automation. If this is the case then the Japanese are clearly ahead.     

Disentangling the impact of infrastructure on trade using a new index of infrastructure

Making use of considerably improved measures of infrastructure, the study assesses the impact of infrastructure on bilateral trade for a panel of 150 developed and emerging economies during the period 1992–2011. The authors make use of a gravity approach to disentangle the impact of infrastructure on trade and trade costs. Improving infrastructure endowments and quality decreases trade costs and increases international trade flows. Countries with improved infrastructure reduce not only bilateral trade costs but also multilateral trade costs. The decomposition of effects indicates that better infrastructure encourages higher export flows relative to domestic trade flows. Main results of the study prove to be robust, also when considering distinct trade categories (consumption goods, intermediates, and capital goods) for a smaller sample.     

Moderating effect of discriminatory attributions on repatronage intentions

This research investigates the role of social context at the time of a service failure. The negativity of the service failure has the potential to escalate when consumers who are part of a traditionally stigmatized group believe the service failure to be a purposeful event brought on by physically observable differences in appearance. A small exploratory study and two large scale data collections are conducted to validate a measure of transaction specific attributions of discrimination (TSAD) to enhance our understanding of the issue. The moderating effect of TSAD is demonstrated on repatronage intentions to the service firm.     

Restructuring Soviet Transport: a Study in Similarities and Contrasts

The nation states created by the disintegration of the former Soviet Union inherited transportation systems ill suited to the needs of market economies. Technologies were often outmoded, too energy intensive and not well adapted to the on–time delivery of small shipments characteristic of a modem consumer society. Furthermore, similarly to much of the rest of the Soviet economy, the transport sector was burdened with unwieldy and diffxcult–to–manage vertically integrated monopolies that were largely unresponsive to customer needs. Policies to solve these problems will vary from mode to mode. For water and highway transport, simple pro–competitive policies that emphasize easy entry, little regulation and prompt privatization should be appropriate. Because of network coordination and specialized infrastructure requirements, rail and air transport will need less fragmented approaches. One positive aspect of the transport situation in the former Soviet Union, slightly reducing the pressures for immediate reforms, the substantial capacity put in place by the old regime–a consequence of the former command/control economy being one of the most transport intensive in the world