Expatriate return on investment in the Asia Pacific: An empirical study of individual ROI versus corporate ROI

The return on investment (ROI) from international assignments is a crucial aspect of expatriate management. The literature has taken a mostly organizational perspective of this important phenomenon, with little attention to the ‘individual ROI’ expatriates gain when undertaking an assignment. Especially lacking is research on expatriate ROI in the Asia Pacific region. Based on interviews with 31 long-term expatriates in 10 Asian countries, we use psychological contract theory to examine (1) how ‘individual ROI’ acts as a key driver of ‘corporate ROI’ and (2) the challenges and opportunities that expatriation in the Asia Pacific presents to individuals and organizations.     

The effect of World Bank trade adjustment assistance on trade and growth, 1987–2004: Is the glass half full or half empty?

This paper studies the association between trade reform, growth, and trade adjustment assistance in a sample of developing countries that underwent trade reforms during 1987–2004. Our analysis explicitly differentiates between a group of countries that received trade adjustment loans from the World Bank and a non-recipient group. The results suggest that trade adjustment assistance is positively associated with economic growth after trade reform in the medium to long run. In comparison to a pre-reform period and to the non-recipient group, the recipient countries registered 0.2 percent higher growth of real GDP per capita, 5.0 percent higher import growth, and 2.5 percent higher export growth over a period of three to five years after trade reform.     

The international spillover effects of pension reform

This paper explores how pension reforms in countries with PAYG schemes affect countries with funded systems. We use a two-country two-period overlapping-generations model, where the countries only differ in their pension systems. We distinguish between the case where a reform potentially leads to a Pareto improvement in the PAYG country, and where this is impossible. In the latter case, the funded country shares both in the costs and the benefits of the reform. However, if a Pareto-improving pension reform is feasible in the PAYG country, a Pareto improvement in the funded country is not guaranteed.     

Social indicators and comparisons of living standards

Construction of an international index of standards of living, incorporating social indicators and economic output, typically involves scaling and weighting procedures that lack welfare-economic foundations. Revealed preference axioms can be used to make quality-of-life comparisons if we can estimate the representative household's production technology for the social indicators. This method is applied to comparisons of gross domestic product (GDP) and life expectancy for 58 countries. Neither GDP rankings, nor the rankings of the Human Development Index (HDI), are consistent with the partial ordering of revealed preference. A method of constructing a utility-consistent index incorporating both consumption and life expectancy is suggested.     

Differential Effects of Chinese Women's Sexual Self-Schema on Responses to Sex Appeal in Advertising

Despite the increased use of sex appeal in advertising, little is known about the influence of individual personality differences on responses to sexual information. This study examines the effects of the “sexual self-schema” personality trait on Chinese women's responses to advertisements using sex appeal. Regardless of the type of sexual information used, attitudes toward these advertisements mediate the effect of sexual self-schema on the purchase intentions of women with lower sexual self-schema while this mediating effect was not observed in women with higher sexual self-schema. The theoretical and practical implications of sex appeal in advertising for Chinese women are discussed.     

Entrepreneurial failure and discrimination: lessons for small service firms

This paper draws lessons from a case decided by the USA Supreme Court, wherein the firm failure was perceived by the minority entrepreneur as an outcome of racial discrimination. Implications of this case are significant because the failure rate of minority-owned US businesses has been consistently higher than the average failure rate of US business. We argue that the impact of discrimination by a customer is greater for small service firms. Through the Domino's Pizza case, we assert that issues relating to equal employment, inter-company contracting and choice of business organisation must be managed by the owner of a service firm.     

Firm-size distribution and price-cost margins in Dutch manufacturing

Industrial economists surmise a relation between the size distribution of firms and performance. Usually, attention is focused on the high end of the size distribution. The widely used four-firm seller concentration ratio, C4, ignores what happens at the low end of the size distribution. We investigate to what extent the level and the growth of small business presence influence price-cost margins in Dutch manufacturing. We use a large data set of 66 industries for a thirteen year period. This allows the investigation of both small business influences within a framework in which that of many other market structure variables is also studied. Evidence is shown that price-cost margins are influenced by large firm dominance, growth in small business presence, capital intensity, business cycle, international trade and buyer concentration.     

The importance of internal and external R&D network linkages for R&D organisations: evidence from Singapore

This paper examines the importance of internal and external R&D networks for R&D organisations of multinational firms (MNCs) in Singapore and investigates corresponding R&D management requirements in this context, namely a late-industrialising country in Asia. A unique feature of Singapore is its ability to attract 'high quality' foreign direct investment, involving activities of higher value added and more complex technology without having developed full-fledged R&D activities among its business organisations, thus creating a challenging situation for subsidiary R&D managers, both in the internal R&D organisation as well as in the external research environment. This paper analyses these issues.
Based on in-depth interviews with 53 R&D subsidiaries of MNCs operating in Singapore, this paper identifies internal and external R&D management needs. Through our analysis of data gleaned from these interviews, we found that subsidiary R&D managers need to increase and/or maintain the strategic importance of their R&D site internally within their global corporate R&D organisation. This requires constant upgrading of the technological level at the R&D subsidiary and intense communication with headquarters as well as other R&D subsidiaries. Furthermore, our findings indicate that in the external research environment, subsidiary R&D managers need to create an efficient local network of external players. If these internal and external issues are properly addressed, the R&D subsidiary can effectively contribute to the corporate R&D organisation and be a critical partner in the local research network. Lessons learned from the Singapore experience include the need to develop sufficient local expertise as well as to change the mindset of managers to focus on creativity rather than precise execution.     

Training at IBM's human resource service center: linking people,technology, and HR processes

IBM's Human Resource Service Center (HRSC) delivers centralized human resource operational support to over 500,000 IBM employees and retirees (including spouses and dependents). Its success is attributed to a skilled workforce focused on technology and end‐to‐end HR program support. Technology allows the Center to handle high volumes of customer requests while offering self‐service options and tiered support. Training is key to delivering quality service center support. This article describes the HRSC's methods to train customer service representatives and program specialists as well as the training challenges. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.