Managerial characteristics and willingness to send employees on expatriate assignments

This paper examines the characteristics of managers that influence their willingness to send employees on expatriate assignments. Data from 336 senior managers in a major U.S. professional services firm indicate that managers who are higher up in the organizational hierarchy are more willing to send employees on expatriate assignments. In addition, our findings show that managers who have more extensive international experience are more inclined to send employees on such assignments and that managers with expatriate experience themselves are much more willing to send their employees overseas, regardless of whether they currently work with international clients. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

On the differing pattern of corporate diversification across economies

Conglomerates, that is, firms which have diversified into industries having little in common in terms of markets, technologies, or skills, occupy only a relatively minor position among large firms in the U.S., but they dominate many other economies, particularly the developing ones in Asia. This paper describes a model which helps explain this difference in the observed pattern of corporate diversification across economies.The author is grateful to Gamal Atallah, participants at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, participants at the Forty-Third International Atlantic Economic Conference, October 8–11, 1998, Boston, Massachusetts, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions. The author is responsible for all errors and omissions.     

Indian export incentives

This paper analyses Indian export incentives within the framework of piecemeal ‘second-best’ welfare economics, taking the extant import control system as a binding constraint. It provides a condensed account of recent Indian export incentives together with some quantitative estimates (based on firm level data for some engineering good exporters) of their likely effects on feasible second-best welfare levels.     

Proposing a sustainable marketing framework for heritage tourism

This study tests a sustainable marketing protocol for heritage tourism institutions. The marketing plans of 20 museums across the United States are examined to grasp the empirical reality of the proposed model. The model is crafted along strategic marketing criteria, including measures such as environment analysis, level of local community involvement, partnership, and maintenance of traditional preservation-based objectives of the museums. A gap between the philosophical underpinnings of the proposed model and the existing marketing strategies is found. It is noted that the contemporary museum ethos in many regions of the United States is centered on short term plans and current survival. Additionally, regardless of locations, funding and short-termism dictate the core elements of all marketing plans. Overall, the results indicate that dedicated efforts and more awareness are needed to sustain the core purpose of contemporary museums. Using an applied approach, this study offers a unique and realistic perspective to a conceptually drawn framework. The results enhance the marketing literature, offer suggestions on how museum marketing plans could include sustainable elements and become part of a sustainable heritage tourism paradigm.     

India's trade with the socialist countries

India's trade with the socialist countries increased most rapidly after 1960. This rapid growth occured in a framework of bilateral trade agreements, the distinct feature of which was that payments for all transactions were made in rupees. The USSR was by far the most important trading partner. Bilateral rupee trade provided India with imports that were essential for its development programme and was also responsible for a little more than 40 per cent of the growth in India's total exports between 1960/1 and 1972/3. In view of the fact that a large proportion of it constituted a net increase in exports and was probably at better terms of trade, there is no doubt that India derived substantial benefits from its trade with the socialist countries.