Macroeconomic Consequences of Outsourcing: An Analysis of Growth, Welfare, and Product Variety

Outsourcing of non-core activities is nowadays a common business strategy. Declining transaction and transportation costs caused by the advent of Information and Communication Technology are a potentially important driving force behind this development. This paper provides a theoretical framework for analysing a firm's incentive to follow such a strategy of outsourcing and its consequences for macroeconomic variables like growth and product variety. We divide production activities into core and non-core activities. Non-core activities can be performed within the firm or can be mediated by the market. We derive conditions under which outsourcing occurs, and under which outsourcing is socially desirable. These conditions do not necessarily coincide. Outsourcing may hence be a profitable strategy for firms, while it is socially suboptimal. Crucial parameters in the model are the relative scale of core versus non-core activities, management costs, transaction costs and love for variety of consumers.     

An internet marketing framework for the World Wide Web (WWW)

It is likely that the World Wide Web (WWW) will come to play a significant role in the marketing strategies of many organisations, even when it fails to become the dominant marketing communications channel. A framework is required whereby an organisation can assess the potential of, develop a role for, create and manage a WWW site within its marketing strategy. The WWW is an interactive channel offering a potential for many‐to‐many communications to all players in a market. Existing frameworks either fail to recognise the implications of this or else they ignore it. This paper attempts to develop a framework which invites organisations to fundamentally rethink their marketing strategies through consideration of the opportunities presented by the WWW.     

Interpersonal Stress Reactions and Service Quality Responses among Hospitality Industry Employees

Work stress is now recognised as a major issue in the human resource management arena, for both staff and management. Within the hospitality industry context, service quality issues are beginning to assume major importance in the success of many operations. This study has sought to understand interpersonal conflict work stress responses associated with hospitality industry employee-management conflict, together with approaches to service quality issues among a sample of Australian hospitality industry domain was the sole predictor of the clearer and more autonomous work role stress response, and the management service quality domain was the predictor of the better management communication stress response. Better communication by management presented as the dominant stress response, and was found to be particularly associated with femalae hospitality industry employees. Implications of these findings for both hospitality industry employees and for hospitality industry management are explored.     

The political economy of financial reform: How robust are huang's findings?

Using new data on financial liberalization taken from Abiad et al. (2008, IMF Working Papers, No. 08/266) for 62 countries over the period 1975–2005, we show that some of the main findings of Huang's (2009, Journal of Applied Econometrics 24 : 1207–1213) replication study on the drivers of financial liberalization are not robust. Major changes concern the effect of democracy on financial reform and the supposed relationship between the desired level of financial liberalization and a country's per capita income. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integrating expected coverage and local reliability for emergency medical services location problems

Daskin's MEXCLP model [Daskin M. A maximum expected covering location model: formulation, properties, and heuristic solution. Transportation Science 1983;17:48-70] was one of the first efforts to capture the stochastic nature of emergency medical services (EMS) location problems within a mixed-integer formulation. With their subsequent introduction of MALP, ReVelle and Hogan [The maximum availability location problem. Transportation Science 1989;23:192-200] offered two key advances, local vehicle busyness estimates and the α-reliability objective. While these constructs have influenced many subsequent EMS location models, they have been subjected to relatively little empirical analysis. To address this, we introduce the LR-MEXCLP, a hybrid model combining the local busyness estimates of MALP with the maximum coverage objective of MEXCLP. We then solve a series of problems with all three models and employ simulation to estimate aggregate service levels. We find that LR-MEXCLP leads to modest but consistent service gains over both MALP and MEXCLP. These results support the merits of local busyness estimates, but they also suggest that the α-reliability objective may be inappropriate when seeking to maximize aggregate system response capabilities. More generally, our research underscores the utility of (a) linking modeling assumptions and goals with real-world application contexts, and (b) employing simulation or other techniques to validate theoretical results.     

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Media constructions of risk: a case study of the Stainforth Beck incident

In October 2000 two schoolgirls were swept away from their party whilst ‘river walking’ in Stainforth Beck near Settle in North Yorkshire. The paper examines this incident with reference to media coverage of the events at the time and the subsequent reportage. The discussion contributes to the debate concerning the appropriateness of an agenda of broadening education. We argue from a position that supports the principle of breadth, particularly when such activities are part of adventure education with its propensity to engage with outdoor risk settings. Whilst lessons must be learnt from such a tragic incident, it is important that outdoor professionals continue to disseminate the positive potential of adventure in order to offset the negative messages concerning risk promoted by the media in general.     

What is different about urban activities of those with access to ICTs? Some early evidence from Québec,Canada

The first wave, conducted in 2002–2003, of an in-depth panel survey in Quebec City, was used to compare the out-of-home activities of adults who had the use of mobile phones, or of internet at home, to those who did not. A unique feature of the survey was the inclusion of respondents’ perceptions of the both the temporal and the spatial flexibility of all executed activities. We find, after statistical controls for other factors, that mobile phone use was positively associated with activity and trip levels, while internet access was negatively associated. These two ICTs also had mostly opposite relationships with the routinisation and pre-arrangement of activities and with some conventionally defined sub-classes of activity.     

Knowledge embeddedness and the transfer mechanisms in multinational corporations

This paper reports a qualitative study conducted at four Japanese subsidiaries in China and Vietnam about their process of international knowledge transfer. Building on the literatures concerning the diverse types and characteristics of knowledge in multinational corporations (MNCs), we explore the broad mechanisms adopted and locally generated by the host country subsidiaries for transferring the foreign knowledge and putting the locally embedded knowledge into practical use at the local settings. The findings indicated (1) the limitations of applying a standardized and universal set of knowledge transfer mechanisms without considering local idiosyncrasies and (2) the contributions of local agents and institutions throughout the process of local knowledge adaptation and development.