The paddy grows in silence

In the attempt to build a South East Asian Community, similar experiences will be made as in other cases of merging disparate organisations. There are common interests, but also antagonisms, and a complicated network of interdependence will create a completely novel organism whose character cannot be foretold.     

丹麦的福利政策

丹麦的福利政策已经成为与市场经济、技术和社会可能协调发展的一个范例 ,与此同时 ,这一政策能够确保社会成员的高度平等 ,也使得社会福利政策能更好地关注儿童、老年人及卫生事业。这一政策同时能够确保丹麦人享有较高的生活水平 ,也能够确保丹麦经济的持续发展。《丹麦福利政策的历史》一文阐释了形成这一政策的关键原因是核心人物在制定这一政策方面所表现出的高度一致 ,即初期主要是工人、农民的意愿 ,但随后各主要党派对创造平等的生活水平作为目标都形成了政治共识。因此 ,与其它国家相比 ,丹麦的福利政策能够将占GDP比重较高的税…     

Deep-water ports for Germany

The world-wide trend in bulk shipping towards larger-sized vessels has in recent years evoked a discussion in the Federal Republic of Germany about the advisability of providing technical facilities for handling giant ships on the German coast. Such facilities do not yet exist. The issue retains great topical interest because more and more mass carriers drawing too much water to enter German ports with a full load are coming into use or are under construction.     

合作保护品牌

美国海关实施品牌保护涉及到海关程序的多个方面,但海关的执法程序主要包括两个阶段：扣押与没收。在这两个阶段里,商标所有人可以亲自参与执法过程,告知海关如何识别他们的品牌,并且收集有关非法流入美国的伪造品信息。     

Positional rigidity: low performance and resource acquisition in large and small firms

Past research has given contradictory answers to the question of how strategic change is linked to firm size and performance. This paper resolves the contradictory predictions of performance feedback theory and threat rigidity theory by positing that small and large firms have distinct responses to performance because of differences in risk aversion and internal rigidity. To examine these differences, it is necessary to distinguish risk taking from rigidity in the strategic position, which is accomplished by separate analysis of the amount of resource acquisition and the difference of acquired and existing resources. Analysis of data from the shipping industry supports the predicted interactions of firm size and performance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GESTO—A network organized company?

Despite its growing popularity, the concept of network organization is often used with different meanings and no empirical support. This paper attempts to fill these two gaps. To fill the theoretical gap, we discuss the content and applicability of network concepts inside a firm by presenting 10 footnotes toward a possible operational definition. The footnotes contain structural and process properties of network organizations. In the second section, we analyze through a case-study methodology GESTO, an Italian service company, and we show how its profile and operation approximate a network-like organization. Finally, we discuss future possible research on organizational forms.     

The thin red line between success and failure: Path dependence in the diffusion of innovative production technologies

The wide variation in the success of innovations obscures similarities in the process of firms being influenced by other firms when choosing production technology. We argue that diffusion processes are similar across successful and failed innovations. Production asset innovation success results not only from innovation quality differences—early chance events and subsequent path dependence are also intrinsic to diffusion processes. Thus, diffusion processes do not reliably spread the best innovations, producing competitive advantage for firms with an early lead producing innovations and firms adopting high‐quality innovations. We test these predictions quantitatively by analyzing the diffusion of the DC‐10 and L‐1011 airplanes, and find support for our theory linking the social information provided by firm adoptions to the success of innovative production technologies. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast and expensive: the diffusion of a disappointing innovation

Firms seek to imitate innovations that yield competitive advantage, but imitation can presage disappointment when the innovation value is below expectations. Empirical research has only rarely examined the diffusion of such disappointing innovations, and it is not known whether negative information from past adopters will halt the diffusion process. Likewise, the effect of heterogeneity in the innovation value on its spread has not been systematically investigated. Here, a unique dataset on a disappointing innovation is used to examine how adoption decisions are imitated, but actual use and subsequent abandonment can yield information that reduces the likelihood that others will adopt. The findings show imitation of the adoptions of other firms, but avoidance of the innovation once these firms start using the innovation or abandon it. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.