Technology Adoption and Its Impact on Production Performance of Dairy Operations

Data from the 1993 Agricultural Resource Management Study were used to examine the impact of technology adoption on production performance of a sample of dairy farms. Findings showed that the adoption of a capital- or a management-intense technology would measurably lower the likelihood of a farmer being in the lowest quartile of production performance. The economic costs of milk production by the top-performance group were estimated to be 53% lower than those by the low-performance group, providing evidence of the importance of improved production practices to the viability of many dairy operations.     

Growth dynamics: the bidirectional relationship between interfirm collaboration and business sales in entrant and incumbent alliances

This paper demonstrates the existence of bidirectional relationships between interfirm collaboration and business sales. Controlling for factors that influence whether firms form collaborative relationships, the analysis shows that entry and post‐entry collaboration often contribute to superior performance, which in turn attracts more partners. However, the performance influences vary across types of collaborators and collaborations, with differences among entrant and incumbent partners, between marketing and R&D partnerships, by partner size, and across time. The empirical analysis examines businesses that operated in the U.S. hospital software systems industry between 1961 and 1991. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk-based decision analysis in support of precautionary policies

A decision-analytic model for avoiding a risky activity is presented. The model considers the benefit and cost of avoiding the activity, the probability that the activity is unsafe, and scientific tests or studies that could be conducted to revise the probability that the activity is unsafe. For a single decision maker, thresholds are identified for his or her current subjective probability that the activity is unsafe. These thresholds indicate whether the preferred course of action is avoiding the activity without further study, engaging in the activity without further study, or conducting a test or research programme to obtain additional information and following the result. When these thresholds are low, precautionary action is more likely to be warranted. When there are multiple stakeholders, differences in their perceptions of the benefit and cost of avoidance and differences in their perceptions of the accuracy of the additional information provided by the test or research programme combine to create differences in their decision thresholds. Thus, the model allows for the rational expression of differences among parties in a way that highlights disagreements and possible paths to conflict resolution. The model is illustrated with an application to phytosanitary standards in international trade and examined in terms of recent empirical research on lay perceptions of risks, benefits, and trust. Further research is suggested to improve the elicitation of model components, as a way of fostering the legitimate application of risk-based decision analysis in precautionary policy making.     

Changes in Malaysia: Capital controls,prime ministers and political connections

During the 1997 Asian currency crisis and resulting imposition of capital controls in Malaysia, evidence from previous studies shows that firms with political connections suffered more during the crisis but benefited more when capital controls were introduced. In the period since then, the evidence shows financial firms with political connections have not performed as well as others since the measures set up to support them have been removed. The study period not only includes the relaxation of capital controls, but also the resignation of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad as prime minister and the handover of control to Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.     

Longevity Risk Management in Singapore's National Pension System

Although annuities are a theoretically appealing way to manage longevity risk, in the real world relatively few consumers purchase them at retirement. To counteract the possibility of retirees outliving their assets, Singapore's Central Provident Fund, a national defined contribution pension scheme, has recently mandated annuitization of workers’ retirement assets. More significantly, the government has entered the insurance market as a public‐sector provider for such annuities. This article evaluates the money's worth of life annuities and discusses the impact of the government mandate and its role as an annuity provider on the insurance market.     

Editorial. Problems, challenges and opportunities: the small business as a setting for management accounting research

This special issue is devoted to management accounting in the small firm. It comprises five studies which address various aspects of this topic, which have been undertaken from different perspectives and which involve different research methodologies. The editorial below reviews the potential for and significance of research in this area and assess the contribution made by the five studies.     

Cow-calf profitability and leptin genotyping

Profitability of cow-calf production is determined largely by market prices, calf weaning weights, and cow productive life. While producers individually have no effect on prices, weaning weights and productive life have genetic influences and hence can be altered by selection programs implemented by producers. We investigate the impact of a mutation in the leptin gene (exon 2; single nucleotide polymorphism [SNP] 305) on cow-calf profitability. Prior research shows that this mutation has effects on performance and traits of fed cattle and milk production in dairy cows. Using data from a teaching-research herd, we find that it is also associated with calf weaning weights and cow productive life. A bio-economic stochastic simulation demonstrates that the mutation has statistically positive impacts on profits, suggesting that producers can profitably make use of this information.     

Hunting the Whale: More Evidence on State Government Leviathans

Caplan holds that governments are Leviathans, seeking to extend their power by increasing government expenditures beyond the level preferred by voters. We extend Caplan's model by examining the real (percentage) growth rates of government. We also examine whether government size increases at an increasing rate as the minority party weakens. We find evidence that supports and fails to support the original Leviathan hypothesis. We also fail to support our extensions of Caplan's hypothesis. Furthermore, our significant and contrary results have intuitively appealing interpretations. From these results, we conclude that the impact of political party power on government spending is ambiguous.     

Toward a sustainable conceptualization of dependent variables in entrepreneurship research

Entrepreneurship researchers have yet to explore the full range variance that occurs in entrepreneurial value creation because we have focused almost exclusively on financial performance as the dependent variable in our research. However, such arbitrary narrowness is not supported by research, which shows entrepreneurs to not focus exclusively on income maximization. Consistent with calls for an expanded view of the consequences of entrepreneurship, we develop a typology of entrepreneurship dependent variables that supports broadening the scope of entrepreneurship research to include economic, environmental and social value. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.