Globalization of Smaller Firms: Field Notes on Processes

Smaller firms have played a pivotal role in the present decade of globalization. Reduced barriers to international trade and investment coupled with the advances in information technology have accorded opportunities for smaller firms -- employing fewer than 500 persons -- to emerge as multinational. The focus of this exploratory paper is on the how of their globalization or internationalization. Information from field studies of seven firms -- three Dutch and four American -- obtained by means of personal interviews with senior managers constitutes the primary qualitative data. Considering the convenient choice of the firms and the subjective nature of the recall data the paper, without claiming to draw any inferences, offers three initial propositions, for further refinement, expansion and empirical testing.     

On Business Cycle Asymmetries in G7 Countries

We investigate whether business cycle dynamics in seven industrialized countries (the G7) are characterized by asymmetries in conditional mean. We provide evidence on this issue using a variety of time series models. Our approach is fully parametric. Our testing strategy is robust to any conditional heteroskedasticity, outliers, and/or long memory that may be present. Our results indicate fairly strong evidence of nonlinearities in the conditional mean dynamics of the GDP growth rates for Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US. For France and the UK, the conditional mean dynamics appear to be largely linear. Our study shows that while the existence of conditional heteroskedasticity and long memory does not have much effect on testing for linearity in the conditional mean, accounting for outliers does reduce the evidence against linearity.     

Examining Sustainability of Federal Finances in India: An Application of Non-Stationary Panel Methods

This paper examines the fiscal sustainability of Indian States during the 1990s on the basis of their budgetary data. Sustainability has been discussed using the inter-temporal budget constraint framework and has been tested by applying the panel co-integration technique. The panel analysis reveals that revenue receipts and revenue expenditures are co-integrated across the States. Further, the insensitivity of the results to the choice of the period of analysis attests robustness to the result that the State finances in India may not be unsustainable.

     

Temporal product bundling with myopic and strategic consumers: Manifestations and relative effectiveness

Bundling in this era of eCommerce and high technology is a potent and widespread selling tool. The literature has focused on three static bundling strategies under which the products are sold separately (pure components or PC) or only in a bundled form (pure bundling or PB) or both (mixed bundling or MB). In a generalization, and motivated by real world examples, this paper examines the relative effectiveness of temporal bundling. We consider a firm that sells to a market of myopic and strategic consumers, and a selling season consisting of two stages. We compare four strategies – PC-PC (i.e., pure components in each of two stages), PB-PB, PB-PC and PC-PB – relative to MB. Our results show that PB-PB maximizes profits under low marginal costs; PC-PC prevails under high marginal costs given a large proportion of myopic consumers; and PB-PC is profit maximizing under moderate marginal costs when most consumers are strategic. These temporal strategies dominate MB except when the market is comprised entirely of strategic consumers. Finally, while temporal mixed bundling – MB-MB – is weakly superior to other temporal strategies, the latter are much easier to implement, as shown by real-world uses, and suffice to capture most of the profits. Related interesting pricing implications are discussed. Three extensions to the main model are also proposed.     

How do trade and financial integration affect the relationship between growth and volatility?

The influential work of Ramey and Ramey [Ramey, G., Ramey, V.A., 1995. Cross-country evidence on the link between volatility and growth. American Economic Review 85, 1138-1151 (December).] highlighted an empirical relationship that has now come to be regarded as conventional wisdom—that output volatility and growth are negatively correlated. We reexamine this relationship in the context of globalization—a term typically used to describe the phenomenon of growing international trade and financial integration that has intensified since the mid-1980s. Using a comprehensive new data set, we document that, while the basic negative association between growth and volatility has been preserved during the 1990s, both trade and financial integration significantly weaken this negative relationship. Specifically, we find that, in a regression of growth on volatility and other controls, the estimated coefficient on the interaction between volatility and trade integration is significantly positive. We find a similar, although less robust, result for the interaction of financial integration with volatility.     

Clicks and Mortar: The Effect of On-line Activities on Off-line Sales

Retailers did not immediately extend their business to the Internet environment, fearing that on-line activities could adversely impact their off-line sales. To facilitate assessment of the impact of on-line activities on off-line sales, we develop a method that allows retailers to use readily available market data for making informed decisions. The proposed method determines (1) the extent to which on-line sales cannibalize off-line sales, and (2) whether on-line activities build on-line equity for the firm. We illustrate the method using data from Tower Records' Internet sales division. We find that on-line sales do not significantly cannibalize retail sales and that the firm's web activities build long-term on-line equity. While the proposed method can be used by any clicks-and-mortar firm, our firm-specific results indicate that Towers' fears regarding cannibalization due to its own Internet activities were unfounded.     

India's trade balance in the 1980s an econometric analysis

The paper is an examination of India's trade balance in the 1980s. The approach attempted is of examining the bilateral trade balances of India with nine trading partners from the non-communist bloc. The long-run equilibrium relations are studied via two VAR models in Johansen's multivariate cointegration framework. Five hypotheses of interest are singled out for attention. The nominal and real exchange rates consistently emerge as important influences on the trade balance. However, as the exchange rates fail weak exogeneity tests, policy implications are not clear cut.     

Critical Management Studies and Business Ethics: A Synthesis and Three Research Trajectories for the Coming Decade

We present the findings of a worldwide survey that was administered to business ethic scholars to better understand journal quality within the business ethics academic community. Based upon the data from the survey, we provide a ranking of the top 10 business ethics journals. We then provide a comparison of business ethics journals to other mainstream management journals in terms of journal quality. The results of the study suggest that, within the business ethics academic community, many scholars prefer to publish in the top business ethics academic journals over other mainstream management journals. Furthermore, the results of the study suggest that within the business ethics academic field there are two dominant academic communities: one in Europe and one in North America. Each of these academic communities has its own preferred publication outlets, suggesting a potentially problematic bifurcation of business ethics scholarship.     

Mobile Marketing in the Retailing Environment: Current Insights and Future Research Avenues

Mobile marketing, which involves two- or multi-way communication and promotion of an offer between a firm and its customers using the mobile, a term that refers to the mobile medium, device, channel, or technology, is growing in importance in the retailing environment. It has the potential to change the paradigm of retailing from one based on consumers entering the retailing environment to retailers entering the consumer's environment through anytime, anywhere mobile devices. We propose a conceptual framework that comprises three key entities: the consumer, the mobile, and the retailer. The framework addresses key related issues such as mobile consumer activities, mobile consumer segments, mobile adoption enablers and inhibitors, key mobile properties, key retailer mobile marketing activities and competition. We also address successful retailer mobile marketing strategies, identify the customer-related and organizational challenges on this topic, and outline future research scenarios and avenues related to these issues.     

Task assignments and incentives: generalists versus specialists

I develop an agency model of job assignments where jobs differ based on the breadth of tasks. A tradeoff between task complementarities and relative abilities of workers results in those with balanced skills being assigned to multitask jobs. The same tradeoff between complementarities and relative abilities also influences incentives to sort privately informed workers to jobs. I then draw on a variety of sources (survey data, case studies, and anecdotal evidence) to suggest that relative abilities and multitasking play an important role in managerial assignments of nonacademic research scientists.