Evolution of global airline strategic alliance and consolidation in the twenty-first century

Global airline strategic alliances have emerged since the late 1980s, and their number has slowly risen through the years. Will the number of such alliances continue to proliferate? Or will airlines consolidate with one another to form mega-carriers? In this paper, the likelihood of various airline consolidation and alliance development possibilities was examined based on a number of high-level trends and forces. The most probable near-term industry alliance and consolidation structure is described, accompanied with a probable path of evolution. These predictions have important implications for managers of strategic alliances, carriers who are currently in an alliance as well as carriers who are planning to join one.     

Research in marketing in Europe: Some reflections on its setting,accomplishments and challenges

In this paper we present some reflections on the development and state of research in marketing in Europe. After briefly putting European research in a historical perspective, we devote a major section to discussing the institutional setting in which research takes place. We believe that the institutional setting is a crucial determinant of research. We then discuss numumber of European research accomplishments. We essentially limit ourselves to marketing models and industrial marketing, our own major areas of interest. In the final section we list some challenges for the future and discuss how they could be turned into opportunities.     

Adjustment of Western Business Expatriates in Hong Kong Versus the Chinese Mainland

Business expatriates assigned to Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, mostly from Western Europe and North America, responded to a survey assessing the extent of sociocultural and psychological adjustment. As expected, results showed that the expatriates were better socioculturally adjusted to Hong Kong than the Chinese mainland, whereas no difference was found for psychological adjustment between the two samples. Examining the adjustment of different nationalities it was found that French business expatriates were less well socioculturally adjusted both in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland than their British and U.S. counterparts. Practical implications of these findings for business expatriates as well as for their firms are discussed and future avenues for extending research of this nature is explored.     

The influence of corporate acquisitions on the behaviour of key inventors

The behaviour of key inventors after the acquisition of their company is examined. Key inventors are identified on the basis of their patenting output. They account for a large number of their company's high-quality patents. The analysis of 43 acquisitions shows that key inventors leave to a substantial extent their company or they significantly reduce their patenting performance after the acquisition. Factors influencing the behaviour of key inventors after acquisitions are identified. Implications for the effective management of acquisitions as well as suggestions for further research are outlined.     

How to define and study farmers' management capacity: theory and use in agricultural economics

Textbooks and articles on farm management stress the importance of the management capacity of the farmer with respect to his farm results. However, explicit definitions together with an elaboration of this concept are hard to find. In this article, aspects of management capacity are grouped into: (1) personal aspects, consisting of fanner's drives and motivations, fanner's abilities and capabilities and his biographical facts such as age and education; and (2) aspects of the decision-making process, consisting of practices and procedures with respect to planning, implementation and control of decisions at the farm. Empirical studies on the role of management capacity in relation to farm results are reviewed. Frontier production functions are widely used in recent literature to estimate technical and economic efficiency of farms. However, in explaining differences in efficiency most studies do not go further than adding a biographical variabk (e.g., level of education). This study concludes that a next step would be to include aspects of the decision-making process. Longitudinal on-farm observations, which give possibilities for studying the dynamic aspects of the decision-making, are suggested to further analyze the concept of management capacity.     

Estimating International Interindustry Linkages: Non-survey Simulations of the Asian-Pacific Economy

This paper evaluates a recently published semi-survey international input–output table for nine East-Asian countries and the USA with four non-survey estimation alternatives. A new generalized RAS procedure is used with stepwise increasing information from both import and export statistics as optimisation constraints on the four non-survey tables. The results show that the estimated table improves when increasing information from both sources is used, despite the well known inconsistencies between import and export data in trade statistics. It is concluded that the new procedure can be useful as a critical analysis of newly published (semi-)survey international tables and/or as an early updating tool during the construction process.     

通过危害度分析和多指标决策改进维修管理

挪威电力部门的维修工作是以动态生产为依据.维修策略是以平衡预防维修与改正性维修为目标.通过RCM分析制订维修方案,提高了维修管理水平.对维修项目按经济指标和质量指标进行评估.