A GOODWINIAN MODEL WITH DIRECT AND ROUNDABOUT RETURNS TO SCALE (AN APPLICATION TO ITALY)

This paper re‐formulates and tests statistically a hypothetical law (HL) of capital accumulation that manifests itself in three scenarios for Italian economy. HL refines Verdoorn law and ‘Ricardian’ relationship between employment and returns; it generalizes neoclassical and Goodwinian models. Big cycles are not sustainable in inertia Scenario I. Lowering direct diseconomy of scale does not alter a non‐trivial stationary state in stabilization Scenario II. Weakening an inverse relation between employment ratio and growth rate of capital intensity raises stationary relative labour compensation without deteriorating profitability in stabilization Scenario III. Stationary states with zero relative labour compensation are not economically relevant.     

Proactive personality and work performance in China: The moderating effects of emotional exhaustion and perceived safety climate

Grounded in the interactionist paradigm, this study shows that emotional exhaustion and perceived safety climate constitute important moderators of the relationship between proactive personality and work performance. More specifically, the study analyzes the relationship between proactive personality and its behavioural outcomes—organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and job performance—and investigates the interactive effects of emotional exhaustion and perceived safety climate. The study involves 485 Chinese airline employees including pilots, flight attendants, engineers, and service employees. Proactive personality positively predicted OCB and individual performance. Emotional exhaustion and perceived safety climate moderated the relationship between proactive personality and individual performance both independently and jointly. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2009 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transport logistic services in Russia: Integration in the world market

This paper considers problems of increased foreign trade networks requiring faster growth of multimodal shipping and exact coordination of all points in the chain of freight delivery. Special attention is paid to rail and sea shipping integration in major directions of freight flows.     

Deregulating the domestic natural gas market: Conditions and mechanisms

The paper looks at topical points of the formation of the domestic natural gas market, the definitive ones being the rules of interaction between the monopoly company and the independent gas producers. Elaborated corporate interaction rules are presented as a Grid Code. The mechanism of a business game between key domestic gas market players is proposed as a Grid Code development tool.     

Specific features of regional budget policy using the example of Novosibirsk oblast

The paper elicits the conditions for developing the financial base of local self-government and examines the breakdown of local budgets in Novosibirsk oblast. The author has analyzed the inhomogeneity characteristics of budget indicators before and after the municipalities were granted financial resources from the oblast budget and assessed cross-territorial differentiation in the fiscal capacity of Novosibirsk oblast municipalities. The paper analyzes the connection between grants, municipality taxes, and nontax revenues and assesses the marginal effect of an increase in taxes going to the local budgets.     

Interrelations between the dynamics of oil prices and demand: Contemporary characteristics

The article shows that the unprecedented rise in oil prices was in recent years accompanied by an increase in oil consumption. The author considers the growth that was seen in the magnitude of oil sales despite multiple increases in price to be, along with the buying up of oil as a high liquidity asset, a phenomenon that indicates an approaching crisis and allows us to create new approaches to its forecasting.     

Innovation activity in branches of Russia’s agroindustrial sector

The main directions in developing the innovation processes in key branches of the agroindustrial sector of the Russian Federation in the modern Russian economy are considered. The role of the state creating a modern innovation system is presented, as well as activation of scientific research into the agroindustrial sector.     

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.     

Reversing the Logic: The Path to Profitability through Relationship Marketing

Many firms have experienced greater success through implementing relationship marketing strategies. This is achieved by gaining knowledge about their own customers through database marketing and about the general marketplace through marketing research. Over time, this has led firms to adopt a general framework which we call the conventional path to profitability. This conventional framework suggests that new product innovation leads to acquisition, acquisition combined with a rich experience leads to satisfaction, satisfaction leads to loyalty and customer retention, and loyalty/retention leads to profitability. However, we show that some of the links in the framework are weak based on both academic research and marketplace realities. Consequently, we reverse the logic of the conventional path to profitability. We introduce a new approach that starts the customer relationship management strategy with customer profitability and the notion that different customers should be rewarded and satisfied differently. In addition, we outline a strategy that relationship marketing firms can implement, leading to higher levels of customer profitability and offer directions for future research.