Fit among Competitive Strategy, Administrative Mechanisms, and Performance: A Comparative Study of Small Firms in Mature and New Industries

At least two different administrative mechanisms are available for the small business manager to develop and to pursue a competitive strategy. One refers to managerial skills needed to implement and to follow the competitive strategy chosen by the firm. The other refers to the design of organization structure—that is, how job tasks are divided, grouped, and coordinated. This paper argues that the fit among the competitive strategy followed by a firm, the utilization of the administrative mechanisms, and the performance of the firm is related to industry maturity.     

Willingness to Pay and QALYs: What Can We Learn about Valuing Foodborne Risk?

This paper examines the value of reducing foodborne risk. Previous research on the valuation of health risk has been dominated by the study of mortality risk. However, in most cases foodborne illnesses are non‐fatal, so we focus on individuals' preferences for reducing morbidity risk, while also including a realistic, if remote, chance of death. We use a contingent valuation method on a Swedish sample and we estimate a value of a statistical illness consistent with previous findings in the literature. We also examine how willingness to pay (WTP) varies with the expected change in quality‐adjusted life years (QALYs) and estimate the WTP per QALY. We find that WTP increases with, though less than proportionally to, a change in QALYs. However, our results also suggest that respondents may have found it difficult to evaluate compound risks of both morbidity and mortality simultaneously.     

The Spatial Integration of Paddy Markets in Vietnam

This paper examines whether there is spatial integration between and within paddy markets in the north and south of Vietnam. The empirical model developed uses estimates of transfer costs to generalise Ravallion's model of spatial market integration to allow for threshold effects. A sequential testing strategy is used to test for market segmentation, the number of thresholds, long‐run integration, informational efficiency and the Law of One Price within an error‐correction framework. We find neither threshold effects nor weak evidence of paddy market integration between northern and southern Vietnam. There is, however, evidence of both threshold effects and stronger market integration within the Red and Mekong River deltas. Whenever price spreads exceed their thresholds, at least 60% of price changes are transmitted between regional markets within a month. Nonetheless, the instantaneous version of the Law of One Price only holds for a few regimes and market pairs. These results suggest that national level policies cannot be relied upon to stabilise or support paddy prices in Vietnam. Instead, policies need to be designed with the specific production, consumption and marketing characteristics of northern and southern Vietnam in mind.     

Interorganizational cost management in the exchange process

This paper explores interorganizational cost management (IOCM) practices in the exchange process. IOCM can be defined as buyers’ and suppliers’ coordinated efforts to reduce costs. Past research has primarily argued that such practices depend on component characteristics, relationship characteristics, and characteristics of the transaction. Based on a study of three buyer–supplier relationships, this article also finds variations in IOCM practices between six main activities in the exchange process. In this process, the supplier's management accounting is found to be more important than recognized by prior research. The deepest collaboration around IOCM issues and the greatest joint use of suppliers’ management accounting in the three cases typically occurs in earlier activities in the exchange process, including supplier selection, joint product design and joint manufacturing process development. In later activities in the process, during full-speed production as well as in product and manufacturing process redesign, suppliers’ managerial accounting plays a lesser role in our study.     

Quantifying rural livelihood strategies in developing countries using an activity choice approach

This article uses a quantitative activity choice approach, based on identification of activity variables and application of latent class cluster analysis, to identify five major rural livelihood strategies pursued by households (n= 576) in Bolivia, Nepal, and Mozambique. Income sources and welfare outcomes are compared across strategies and household differences in asset holdings are analyzed using multinomial logit regression. Findings reveal that income diversification is the norm, that a higher degree of specialization does not characterize more remunerative livelihood strategies, that nonfarm income significantly contributes to higher income earnings, that environmental reliance does not vary across strategies, and that small‐scale farmers are the largest and poorest livelihood group. Some livelihood strategies are superior to all other strategies in terms of income earned; access to more remunerative livelihood strategies is determined by land ownership, education, and ethnic affiliation. Finally, the article also highlights that additional work is required to determine the most suitable methods for livelihood strategy identification.     

Willingness to Pay and Sensitivity to Time Framing: A Theoretical Analysis and an Application on Car Safety

Stated preference (SP) surveys attempt to obtain monetary values for non-market goods that reflect individuals’ “true” preferences. Numerous empirical studies suggest that monetary values from SP studies are sensitive to survey design and so may not reflect respondents’ true preferences. This study examines the effect of time framing on respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for car safety. We explore how WTP per unit risk reduction depends on the time period over which respondents pay and face reduced risk in a theoretical model and by using data from a Swedish contingent valuation survey. Our theoretical model predicts the effect to be nontrivial in many scenarios used in empirical applications. In our empirical analysis we examine the sensitivity of WTP to an annual and a monthly scenario. Our theoretical model predicts the effect from the time framing to be negligible, but the empirical estimates from the annual scenario are about 70 % higher than estimates from the monthly scenario.     

Flexible employment practices in Europe: country versus culture

Abstract This paper examines extent to which variances in flexible employment practices across fourteen European countries may be attributed to cultural variances. Data were gathered through a survey of human resource practices in 4,876 companies. The results indicate that national differences between flexible employment practices were explained by cultural differences. Specifically, we find use of part-time work is related to power distance and individualism; contract work is related to uncertainty avoidance and individualism; shift work is related to uncertainty avoidance, power distance and individualism; and telework is related to femininity.     

Forest owners’ willingness to accept compensation for voluntary conservation: A contingent valuation approach

To avoid conflicts often associated with mandatory regulations, it is crucial to motivate and incentivize forest owners to participate in voluntary conservation programs. To investigate forest owner preferences and willingness to accept compensation (WTA) to participate, we conduct a contingent valuation survey of non-industrial private forest owners in Norway. We find that WTA is negatively related to the size of the forest holding and absentee ownership, and positively related to the share of the forest classified as productive. The overall mean WTA per year per hectare is estimated at NOK 1800. Costs of reaching conservation goals can be saved by targeting small and relatively less productive forests and absentee owners first, before considering increasingly expensive forest areas. However, this recommendation only holds if desirable biological characteristics are not substantially less likely to be found in such areas. Results are potentially important both for our understanding of forest owner preferences and the costs of voluntary forest conservation schemes currently in use in many countries.