From the Soviet Union to the European Union: Estonian Trade Policy, 1991–2000

This paper examines the political economy of Estonian trade policy in the 1990s. Estonia is a unique case in the world economy, in that the country rapidly implemented unilateral free trade after regaining independence and sustained it right through the 1990s. We analyse the circumstances, interests, ideas and institutions that have shaped Estonian trade policy during the past decade. Our stress is on institutions, particularly the national decision‐making setting for trade policy. Through this prism we try to understand how a free trade regime was implemented and sustained, and what this experience suggests for the feasibility of tree trade elsewhere. We also look at the increasingly ‘multi‐track’ nature of Estonian trade policy through bilateral free trade agreements, WTO accession and, especially, the movement towards EU accession. Although the other trade policy tracks to some extent provide a lockin for unilateral reforms, we argue that EU accession is undermining the simple, classical liberal trade policy regime that existed during the 1990s.     

Interpreting value in the customer service experience using customer-dominant logic

Abstract

Traditionally, customer value has been examined from the perspective of the firm. New understandings of customer value from the customer-dominant logic perspective of services emphasise the need to move away from the service-dominant perspective and adopt a customer-based approach that considers value within the broader context of a customer’s lifeworld. This article explores how individual customers make sense of their participation in an extraordinary, commercially-driven consumption experience. A phenomenological approach is taken to understand the lived experience of these participants. The findings of this exploratory study reveal the highly complex nature of value in the experience in the chosen context of luxury driving experience days. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

COMMENT ON NAVIGATING REFORMS: LESSONS FROM INDIA, THE 2008 WINCOTT LECTURE, GIVEN BY ARUN SHOURIE

Economic growth in India has been impressive in recent years. However, development has largely by-passed agriculture and labour-intensive industry, the sectors with the most potential to drive up living standards in the long term. Despite welcome recent efforts at reform, large parts of the Indian economy continue to be hindered by poor governance and over-regulation.     

Operations change interactions in a service environment: Attitudes,behaviors, and profitability

An attitudinal and behavioral change program was developed and implemented in a service operations function. Changes were (1) stabilizing operations management (reducing turnover) and (2) improving attitudes and behaviors of employees with strong union affiliations in a common carrier trucking terminal when compared to similar employees in a control terminal undergoing no planned change. Management turnover was reduced. Other results from the eighteen-month longitudinal study indicated that employee attitudes in both groups remained negative toward work, management, and the company throughout the study period. Behaviors relating to attitudes — particularly turnover, absenteeism, and accident rates—improved at the experimental terminal, even though expressed attitudes remained negative. Operating efficiencies and profitability improved at the experimental terminal. It was found that these employees, pick-up and delivery drivers, retain positive attitudes toward customers and customers the same toward them, in spite of the drivers' negative attitudes toward the company. The operative service employee appeared to discriminate between attitudes toward the company and the customer; the drivers' negative attiudes toward most everything (except the customer) not affecting the customer's perceptions of the driver or the company.     

Tracking innovation: The need for reliable measures of its presence and effects

It is generally accepted that innovation is an essential ingredient of corporate success and, when pervasive, strengthens the economy while warding off foreign competition. Many point to a perceived weakening of this process in U.S. firms as a contributing factor to the steady decline of productivity growth vital to our nation's stability. They clamor for government programs to encourage technical venturing, embracing the “R & D hypothesis” which declares that privately sponsored research is the wellspring of innovation, and thus the key to a producer's prosperity — leading to more vigorous industries.In response, Washington is seeking ways to spur private spending on R & D during this era of diminished Federal backing for research. Such initiatives are handicapped by a lack of data establishing the existence and extent of the apparent slump in industrial creativity. Also there is scant information available to management that demonstrates a close correlation between fortunes of the firm and activities characterized as innovations. Without such evidence, business appears reluctant to abandon its cautious attitude towards support of R & D that cannot be readily commercialized.Little is known about innovation's economic impact or bearing on the survival of an enterprise. The connection between industrial research and the launch of desirable products is too abstruse to permit the assumption that in-house R & D inevitably spawns viable innovations. We do not have data which permit rational decisions for the effective management of innovation by firms, or the design of a workable model for the process. This information gap has a deleterious effect in industries traditionally dependent upon research, and leads to strategies — aimed at fostering innovation — that are inadequate, badly timed or ill conceived.An innovation stems from a series of management decisions motivated by the quest for profits and tempered by industry conditions — government incentives notwithstanding. Companies pay for R & D which promises revenues that would not otherwise appear, and back a new product when the expected return is comparable to that from less risky alternative investments. They require an easily administered method for verifying, in accounting terms, the outcome of an innovation so its contribution to profits can be contrasted with the yield from product improvements or line extensions. Management could then weigh a proposed innovation the same way it evaluates other commitments.Authors of public policy need to monitor the pace of innovation on a regional or national scale so that they can determine when stimulants are called for — to restore this activity to the desired level. The traditional indices of innovation's intensity are imprecise, and misleading if the purpose be to identify a trend. “R & D expenditures” must be viewed with circumspection for they are not always incurred in pursuit of innovations, especially with increasing outlays for compliance with government regulations. “Patents awarded” or “technical articles published” are scant proof of seminal activity, and “government contracts awarded” is not a useful statistic. A true “index of innovation” is needed to guide public policy — one founded on data tied to the launching of products.In conclusion, this article suggests a technique for quantifying innovation inside the firm, as a planning tool of management and to provide the data base for a meaningful “index of innovation”. It describes the index, to be derived from data reported by a representative sample of geographically dispersed companies. A procedure is outlined for generating such data in firms, collecting it by a central authority, and calculating the index.     

Problems experienced by engineers with environmental product development projects

The environment industry has grown rapidly over the last decade. An increasing number of busines organizations are developing innovative products and processes which have neen generated by environmental concerns, increasing legislation for environmental protection and the regulation of industry's environmental impacts. There has been some research on barries to innovation and the problems affecting innovative product development in companies, but little ofthis has been applied to innovations developed for environmental protection, especially in the small firm. This paper provides empirical infomation on the problm experienced by engineers developing innovahe products and processes for environmental protection. A sample of 33 engineers, who were intmested in the competition The Environment Award for Engineers: replied to a postal questionnaire about the problas which thy had experienced in their environmental projects This is a competihon organized by the Engineering Council and sponsored by British Gas. The main aim the research was to explore the problems experienced by engineers during the developmat of environmental projects and in particular the different problems experienced by the engineers who were business owner-mangers and those who were employee engineers. The results show that the most jequent& experienced and most important problas are those concerned with securing financial backing and establishing the technical viability of the new product. Statistically significant differences were found between the most important problem expaaenced by employee engineers and business owner-mangers.