Capacity utilization and the shift coefficient in Soviet planning

Conclusion In the eighties greater emphasis has been placed on intensification of growth in the Soviet Union. Soviet planners are now confronted with the task of improving their knowledge of existing capacity and their means of control over both capacity utilization and expansion. Imperfect knowledge has become a major hindrance to a better allocation of resources. Information is limited and biased. The ministries tend to overestimate capacity utilization by excluding from the estimates of their equipment machines in storage or recently installed. The CSA's statistics are biased by inadequate statistical methods and by the reliance on physical indicators. They tend to overestimate actual capacity and consequently to underestimate capacity utilization.Amongst the available indicators on capacity utilization, planners focus more on the shift coefficient. All industry is presently under pressure to increase this coefficient. However in most engineering branches the equipment shift coefficient is estimated on the basis of enterprises' data on workers' attendances, which—however stable the capital labour ratio may be—cannot give evidence of idle equipment due to technical, organizational and other factors, which could be conventionally defined planning failures and that official censuses on capacity utilization show to be increasingly important. Thus the confidenence on information obtained through the estimated shift coefficient may lead to misplacing the emphasis on a human factor, e.g. on voluntarism. Labour shortages may not be a crucial factor for incomplete capacity utilization as long as most industry works on a two shift regime. But a higher shift regime, particularly in branches with prevalent female labour, may provoke increasing turnover and need for auxiliary repair and servicing personnel, which may jeopardize the policy of intensification. Coeteris paribus the utilization of the workers shift coefficient as a proxy for the equipment shift coefficient may have been justified as long as the capital labour elasticity of substitution was almost nil. However, increasing automation and computerization may aggravate the problem of obtaining correct information on shift and intra-shift capacity utilization. Intrashift capacity utilization may even decrease when the shift regime increases. If decisions on writing off capacity were taken on the basis of a falling workers' shift coefficient, enterprises could be induced to renounce advance technology, in favour of traditional equipment. This, in turn, could aggravate the problem of labour shortage.In default of a proper system of information, planners need to focus on the functioning and achievements of leading industry, which is more closely monitored. One may assume that this section of industry works with automated technology and is at the forefront of the process of adapting the industrial apparatus to present day technological requirements.University of Verona, Verona, Italy. The author is indebted to Philip Hanson, Judith Thornton and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The research was undertaken at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Washington. The support of both institutions is gratefully acknowledged.     

Web 2.0 service adoption and entrepreneurial orientation

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Web 2.0 service adoption and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). For this purpose, this article conducted multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using Web 2.0 service adoption groups (high and low adopters) as an independent variable and EO as dependent variable, measured with four variables: innovativeness, risk taking, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness. The results show that there are significant differences in EO, overall and for each dimension, between the two groups (high adopters/low adopters of Web 2.0). High adopters of Web 2.0 have a stronger EO in terms of all the four of the individual EO dimensions.     

The determinants of new firm formation in italian manufacturing

This paper focuses on entry of small firms in the manufacturing industries. It is argued that the exit option can be viewed as an insurance against risks of failure, increasing the likelihood of entry in an uncertain environment; the result is implicit in recent stochastic models of competition and entry decision under uncertainty. A regression model of industry birth rates in the Italian manufacturing industries provides empirical evidence on the impact of factors determining the decision to enter and the supply of new entrepreneurs. In our estimates, yearly entry rates are found to decrease with entry costs and barriers and to increase with market growth, expected growth of small firms, risks of failure and an index of spatial concentration of activities.     

Industry 4.0 and circular economy: An exploratory analysis of academic and practitioners' perspectives

The union between Industry 4.0 and the circular economy (CE) appears relatively recent. In this sense, new trading zones for sharing a common scenario among academics and practitioners are needed. The paper aims to investigate the link between Industry 4.0 and the CE by understanding how Industry 4.0 can foster the impact of the CE on companies. The study proposes a broader perspective that includes thematic and content analysis gathering data on professional documents based on business cases, newspaper articles, press releases and specialised blogs, as well as scientific papers. The joint academic-practitioners view highlights how Industry 4.0 has the potential to impact on the CE through countless actions: increasing waste disposal; promoting remanufacturing; enhancing the efficiency of critical resources such as water, energy, gas and CO₂; and improving business models and the mission of companies. However, barriers still exist in its adoption, stressing the need for holistic and integrated design and a proactive environment of collaboration among stakeholders. Results lead to practical as well as research implications.     

The All-Russian National Front – for Russia: a new actor in the political and economic landscape

The All-Russian National Front (ARNF), created by Vladimir Putin in 2011, has rapidly increased its power and influence in policy-making. The Front has been used to monitor regional policies and to check both the effectiveness and loyalty of regional governors in carrying out central government policies. This article examines the main activities of the Front and its membership since its creation, and considers the implications for future economic development in Russia.     

Innovation and imitation effects in Metaverse service adoption

This study examines the innovation and imitation effects in Metaverse service adoption. “Metaverse services” is a collective term for services such as Augmented reality, Life logging, Mirror world, and Virtual world. Among them, Twitter, Google, iPhone, and Secondlife (T.G.I.S) are the most popular services/products these days. To measure the adoption of these product/services, the most commonly used are IP traffic and iPhone sales. Thus, in this study, we measured adoption by measuring changes in the IP traffic volume of , , , and sales for iPhone during a 2-year period (from the first quarter of 2008 to the fourth quarter of 2009). To analyze this time series data to reveal the innovation and imitation effect, we employed the Bass model. The results showed that each of these services yields different innovation and imitation coefficient values. Imitation effects for all Metaverse services are greater than innovation effects, and Secondlife’s innovation effects are larger than others. Also, iPhone sales, as a measurement for information and communication technology (ICT) products, showed greater innovation effects than the other services. Implications are drawn to explain these differences, such as, Googlemap’s imitation effects are based on network externalities, while Twitter’s imitation effects are caused by the interactions of individuals; iPhone sales’ innovation effects are explained by the timing of the measurement.     

Valuing externalities from energy infrastructures through stated preferences: a geographically stratified sampling approach

The externalities produced by high-voltage transmission lines are multidimensional, may strongly depend on the local context, and are thus difficult to capture through standard environmental valuation exercises. We experiment a GIS approach to design a geographically stratified contingent valuation sample of the population resident in infrastructure corridors in a whole region. We estimate, by means of a binary choice logit model, the perceived marginal damage from impacts of power lines on human health, the landscape and the environment. Specific treatment is given to qualitatively different forms of impact, namely real estate depreciation versus diffused perception of damage, arising at different distances from the lines. The set of GIS-based variables (proximity to power lines, presence of other infrastructure, endowment of natural and built heritage and other local context variables) prove to be significant predictors in the utility function of resident households. Finally, we compute simulated values that combine information on individual’s willingness to pay, population density and the dimension of the considered corridor around the infrastructure, so as to generalize the outcomes of case-specific studies for use in policy choices such as infrastructure localization, undergrounding and negotiation of compensations.     

The impact of cultural differences on technology adoption

This study examines the impact of Type I and Type II cultural differences on mobile phone adoption patterns. We use Hofstede's cultural dimensions to examine cultural differences of two countries (Type I: the U.S.; Type II: S. Korea) and employ the Bass diffusion model to delineate innovation and imitation effects on mobile phone adoption. The results show that in Type I culture innovation factor has a significantly higher level of effect on adoption than it does in Type II culture; and in Type II culture imitation factor has a higher degree of effect on adoption than it does in Type I culture. These findings imply that in individualistic cultures, people tend to seek information on their own from direct and formal sources, whereas in collectivistic cultures, people rely more on subjective evaluation of an innovation, conveyed from other-like-minded individuals who already have adopted the innovation.     

The impact of Enterprise 2.0 in organizations

Many organizations have embarked on Enterprise 2.0. However, not many have successfully implemented it. Availability of inexpensive tools does not guarantee their usage by organizations and their employees. To have Enterprise 2.0 implemented widely and effectively by organizations, it is important that both managers and employees benefit from using it. It is expected that the level of congruence of management–employees perceived benefits would affect the level of adoption of Enterprise 2.0 in organizations. Testing this is the purpose of this research. Using the case study of two large global organizations, this study analyzed the use of Enterprise 2.0 by both employees and managers. The results showed that even though both employees and managers believe that Enterprise 2.0 usage does have a positive impact on communication, collaboration, community building, and employee engagement, the level of belief is different: managers’ perception of Enterprise 2.0 benefits is less than that of employees. There was a greater degree of congruence though between both the groups on the perceived benefits of Enterprise 2.0 on knowledge management and organizational outcomes. The size and the type (not-for-profit) of organization was a disadvantage in adopting such tools. The not-for-profit organization was more at loss when applying Enterprise 2.0 as its employees are less aware of the type of tools and of their benefits, and there is less managerial support.