An empirical investigation into supply chain vulnerability

A growing number of academicians and practitioners have put supply chain risks on their agendas, particularly triggered by a recent series of catastrophic events that have disrupted economies and supply chains around the globe. Given the increasing awareness of this important topic, the purpose of this research was to study supply chain risks in more detail and to investigate the relationship between supply chain vulnerability and supply chain risk. Responses from 760 executives from firms operating in Germany reveal that supply chain characteristics such as a firm's dependence on certain customers and suppliers, the degree of single sourcing, or reliance on global supply sources are relevant for a firm's exposure to supply chain risk. Overall, this research represents the first large-scale investigation of this important relationship and provides a finer understanding of the antecedents of supply chain vulnerability.     

Comparing support for organic and conventional farming in the European Union using an adjusted Producer Support Estimate

This paper compares support for organic and conventional farmingin 2001, using the methodology of the Producer Support Estimate(PSE). Although market price support for organic products isdifficult to determine, our case study-based estimates indicatethat the PSE for organic farming ranged between 41 and 44 percent in the EU, compared with 35 per cent for conventional farming.However, the structure of support for the different commoditiesis similar between organic and conventional farming, althoughdirect payments are generally higher for organic farming. Noclear link between the level of support and the share of organicfarming in Member States could be detected. An annual calculationof separate PSEs for both forms of farming could provide usefulinformation about developments in support.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Economic Performance and Trade Liberalisation

In a number of influential papers published by V. N. Balasubramanyam and collaborators during the decade of the 1990s, compelling arguments and supporting evidence was presented to indicate that export‐promoting trade and investment strategies attract more and more productive inflows of foreign capital than do import‐substituting strategies. This paper revisits these hypotheses in the context of more recent cross‐section data and reports evidence to suggest that the earlier findings are robust.     

Perceptions of sales force automation: Differences between sales force and management

Differences between management and salespeople in their perceptions of a new technology can affect the acceptance and implementation of that technology. For sales force automation (SFA) systems, the differences in the perceptions held by management and salespeople toward the SFA can affect the successful adoption and implementation of the system by the organization. This paper reports the results of an investigation that focused on the differences in perceptions held by the United States Army's recruiting force and its higher level management toward the Army's newly adopted SFA system, the Army Recruiting Information Support System (ARISS). The results of the study indicate that significant differences exist between the perceptions held by the recruiting force and higher level management toward ARISS, the SFA system. The results offer important insights into managing SFA system deployment and gauging user expectations.     

Die Diskussion über die Portabilität von risikogerechten Transferbeträgen in der Privaten Krankenversicherung

The capital funded health insurance system in Germany (the PKV) is afflicted with a lack of competition because insurants loose their ageing provisions if they switch their insurer. This leads to prohibitive switching costs even after few years of insurance. An intensified competition can only be achieved by transferring ageing provisions with the switch-over. But this raises complex economic and actuarial questions.The article starts with a motivation of the appropriateness of calculative ageing provisions. These quantities can be transferred. A further amount has to be transferred in order to avoid risk selection. Central requests for a mechanism to determine such risk adjustment amounts are derived. After that, options for an implementation are lined out.     

A spatial model for multivariate lattice data

In this article, we develop Markov random field models for multivariate lattice data. Specific attention is given to building models that incorporate general forms of the spatial correlations and cross-correlations between variables at different sites. The methodology is applied to a problem in environmental equity. Using a Bayesian hierarchical model that is multivariate in form, we examine the racial distribution of residents of southern Louisiana in relation to the location of sites listed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory.