THE MECHANISATION OF BRITISH FARMING, 1910–1945

Both tractors and milking machines were available to British farmers from the early 19OO's, but the mechanisation of field work and of dairy farming was not general until the 1950's. This paper discusses the technical difficulties of early forms of farm machinery, and the reorganisation of farm work which was required to use the machinery efficiently. Tractors were at first adopted for heavy work, thus easing the pressure on, and increasing the efficiency of, the horses. It was not until after the second world war that tractors and their implements became sufficiently reliable and versatile to supplant horses in all farm operations and to change an important constraint upon the structure of farms and the methods of working them.     

Localisation of Japanese subsidiaries in Southeast Asia

The success story of Japanese firms, both in their home country and their overseas subsidiaries, has been the focus of comparative management research in the 1970s and early 1980s. Several scholars attributed the impressive productivity gains in Japanese industries to the basic principles of Japanese management. Further, they advocated the adoption of these principles by American and European businesses to solve employee morale and productivity problems. However, in recent years, the validity of the “happy worker” hypothesis in explaining the effectiveness of Japanese management has been seriously questioned. In fact, the results of several empirical studies indicate that Japanese firms are facing manpower management problems both at home and in their overseas subsidiaries. The main purpose of this article is to identify and discuss the Japanese management problems of overseas subsidiaries, based on several empirical studies of Japanese overseas subsidiaries undertaken by the authors of this article and other scholars during the last 17 years (1968 to 1985). These studies are:

Localisation Problems of Japanese Subsidiaries Overseas: A Comparative Study in Southeast-Asian Countries.

A comparative study of American, Japanese and local firms in Taiwan.

A comparative study of American, European and Japanese multinationals' subsidiaries in Brazil, Peru, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.

A comparative study of American, German, and Japanese multinations in the United States, Western European countries, Australia, and Japan.

A comparative study of upper-level Japanese and American managers of subsidiaries of Japanese firms in the United States.

A comparative study of subsidiaries of American and Japanese multinationals in Singapore.

An intensive case study of a Japanese subsidiary in Australia.

     

Rice demand in Tanzania: an empirical analysis

We investigate the consumer side of the Tanzania rice market with the primary objective of estimating price elasticities of imported and domestically produced rice. Previous studies of the rice market in Tanzania claim that domestic rice is implicitly protected by consumer preference of its perceived better quality. However, rice producers increasingly complain that imported rice adversely impacts the price of domestic rice. Using household consumer survey data, we estimate price and expenditure elasticities of imported rice, domestic rice, and maize to assess their substitutability in the Tanzanian diet. Our results show that Tanzanian consumers have a preference for domestic rice varieties with weak substitutability between domestic and imported rice varieties.     

Does location matter for disclosure? Evidence from geographic segments

The segment disclosures of multinational companies provide strategic information. We use the location characteristics of geographic segments to identify the reasons for withholding or disclosing segments. We examine segment data from around the adoption of IFRS 8, a reporting standard that requires firms to reveal more disaggregated information. Consistent with a proprietary cost motive for nondisclosure, we find that segments in regions that are deemed better for business tend to be hidden, while higher entry barriers for a segment are positively related to disclosure. These effects appear to be stronger for firms for which proprietary cost motives are more important. Among the previously unrevealed segments, proprietary costs explain the nondisclosure of segment earnings and other relevant financial information for investors.     

App Users Unwittingly in the Spotlight: A Model of Privacy Protection in Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are increasingly jeopardizing app users' online privacy by collecting, storing, and sharing personal data disclosed via apps. However, little is known about mobile app users' current privacy protection behavior and the factors that motivate it. Drawing on Roger's Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), this study develops and tests the App Privacy Protection Model among 1,593 Western European app users. The results demonstrate that, on the one hand, increased levels of perceived self‐efficacy, vulnerability, and privacy concern enhance mobile app users' motivation to engage in risk‐reducing behavior, while on the other hand, higher levels of knowledge of the data collection practices of mobile apps, app attitude, and perceived response costs diminish it. Being the first study that applies PMT in the mobile app context, this study offers several important implications regarding privacy protection in mobile apps.     

Cooperation among companies,universities and local government in a Swedish context

The importance of the business context for company's development work has been stressed in previous research and substantial public resources are now being directed towards university–company interaction to generate innovations. However, cooperation between companies, the public sector and universities could be obstructed by differing logics and purposes for action. This paper examines the interaction among these three actor categories to clarify the possible benefits of becoming more actively involved in each other's development work. A case study in a Swedish context showed that the three actor categories entered into each other's domains in new ways, sharing resources and increasing the potential for innovation. We also found that cooperation allowed a fourth actor category, financiers, to be reached, thereby securing additional resources for the innovation activities, creating action space for cooperation, and for a fifth actor category in the form of independent cooperation facilitators.     

Tercentenary of Ars Conjectandi (1713): Jacob Bernoulli and the Founding of Mathematical Probability

The Tercentenary of the publication of Jacob Bernoulli's Ars Conjectandi (The Art of Conjecturing) provides an opportunity to look at the origins of mathematical probability from Jacob Bernoulli's point of view. Bernoulli gave a mathematically rigorous proof of what has come to be called the weak law of large numbers, relevant to discovering ratios of unknown factors through sampling. The Art of Conjecturing was a bridge between the mathematics of expectation in games of chance as found in Huygens's On Reckoning in Games of Chance and mathematical probability as found in Abraham De Moivre's The Doctrine of Chances. This paper looks at the conceptual context as well as the mathematics of Bernoulli's book.     

Changes in foreign operation modes: Stimuli for increases versus reductions

This article explores the reasons leading executives to change foreign operation modes by contrasting mode increases and reductions. Our study is grounded on stimuli identified through in-depth interviews by a former IBR study which we employ through two different measures in the course of analyzing data from 265 German firms on 320 mode changes. The results show that executives recognize a wide range of reasons for mode change, but the importance and magnitude of those stimuli differ for mode increases and reductions. While performance and external environment increase the likelihood of mode reductions, internal environment and managerial attitudes induce mode increases. Moreover, stimuli for incremental and radical mode changes differ as well.