Improvement Trajectories in Operations and Technology Management: Concept, Process and Content Issues

This study introduces a framework for the analysis of improvement trajectories in operations and technology management. In the first part, the concept of improvement trajectories in operations is defined, grounding on the evolutionary economic issues of path dependence and dynamic capabilities. In the second part, seven dimensions of the process and content of improvement trajectories are reviewed and integrated into a research framework, and research propositions are built to ground further research on the subject. In the third part, the roles of implementation history, innovation capabilities, and strategic orientation as determinants of improvement trajectory success are discussed.     

Coupon and tax effects on new and seasoned bond yields and the measurement of the cost of debt capital

A model of the tax structure of interest rates is developed and simple approximate expressions relating yield to coupon are derived. The effect on these simple expressions of alternative assumptions about holding period length, expectations of future interest rates, and other factors, is evaluated. It is shown that with recent U.S. yield averages the new-seasoned yield spread varies with the new-seasoned coupon spread as the theory prescribes. It is concluded that new issue yield averages should provide a more reliable measure of the cost of debt capital than is provided by seasoned yield averages.     

Sulla dominaza stocastical multivariata

Summary In this paper a sufficient condition for multivariate stochastic dominance is proposed. Such a condition is particularly intersesting in the bivariate case because of its simplicity. A numerical example is presented and worked out in detail.

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Lavoro eseguito nell'ambito del Contributo C.N.R. n. 84.00593.10     

Towards an understanding of the real effects and costs of inflation

Zusammenfassung Zum Verst?ndnis der realen Wirkungen und Kosten der Inflation. — Die traditionelle Ansicht, da\ eine Inflation, weil Geld neutral ist, keine nennenswerten realen Wirkungen hervorbringt, erweist sich nur für eine Volkswirtschaft als ann?hernd richtig, deren Regelungen vollst?ndig inflationssicher sind, d. h. für eine vollindexierte Wirtschaft. Die Realwirkungen erweisen sich aber als um so verbreiteter und schwererwiegend, je mehr bei wirtschaftlichen Regelungen Nominalwerte verwendet werden. Der Aufsatz untersucht nacheinander die Folgen von amtlichen Regelungen auf Nominalbasis (Steuersystem, Definition des steuerpflichtigen Einkommens, Buchführungsmethoden), von privaten Einrichtungen und übereinkünften auf Nominalbasis (Hypotheken, Rentenvertr?ge, Einkommensberechnungen), selbst für den Fall, da\ die Inflation vollst?ndig antizipiert wird bzw. wurde. Anschlie\end werden die Wirkungen einer nicht antizipierten Inflation geprüft, die in den bestehenden nominalen langfristigen Vertr?gen nicht berücksichtigt worden ist, und die Wirkungen einer Ungewissen zukünftigen Inflation. Soweit es m?glich ist, wird versucht, die sozialen Kosten von verschiedenen Realwirkungen abzusch?tzen, obwohl es zur Zeit nicht m?glich ist, die allgemeinen sozialen Kosten der Inflation zu ermitteln.

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Résumé Vers une compréhension des effets réels et des co?t d’inflation. — Nous démontrons que la vue traditionelle d’après laquelle l’inflation ne produit pas des effets réels appréciables à cause de la neutralité d’argent est valide pour une économie seulement dont les institutions sont complètement étanche à l’inflation, c’est-à-dire il s’agit d’une économie indexée. Mais nous démontrons que les effets réels deviennent plus et plus diffusés et sérieux comme les institutions de l’économie deviennent presque plus nominales. L’article examine succédamment les conséquences des institutions nominales de gouvernement (le système fiscal, la définition de revenu taxable, la procédure comptable); des institutions privées nominales et des conventions comptables (les contrats de hypothèque et d’annuité, le mesurage de revenu), même si l’inflation est, et a été complètement anticipée. En plus l’article examine les effets de l’inflation pas anticipée et pas incorporée dans les contrats nominaux existants à long terme, et de l’inflation future incertaine. S’il est possible, nous entreprenons l’effort de fixer les co?t sociaux des effets réels différents même bien qu’il ne soit pas possible au moment présent de fixer tous les co?t sociaux de l’inflation.

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Resumen Hacia el entendimiento de los verdaderos efectos y costos de la inflatión. — La visión tradicional que la inflatión no produce efectos reales apreciables debido a que el dinero es neutral, es solamente válida en forma aproximada para una economía cuyas instituciones están completamente a prueba de inflatión, p.ej. una economía completamente indexada. Pero se muestra que los verdaderos efectos se generalizarán más y más y serán más serios en la medida que las instituciones de la economía sean más cercanamente nominales. El artículo examina en forma sucesiva las consecuencias de instituciones gubernamentales nominales (sistema de impuestos, definitión del ingreso imponible, procedimientos contables); de instituciones privadas nominales y convenciones contables (hipotecas y contratos de renta anuales, medición del ingreso), incluso cuando la inflatión es y ha sido totalmente anticipada. Examina en seguida los efectos de inflatión no anticipados, que no han sido incoirporados dentro de los contratos de largo plazo existentes, y de inflatión futura incierta. En los casos que fue posible, se hizo un esfuerzo por determinar el costo social de varios efectos reales, aunque en este momento no es posible apreciar los costos sociales totales de la inflatión.

     

Technological regimes and demand structure in the evolution of the pharmaceutical industry

This paper examines how the nature of the technological regime governing innovative activities and the structure of demand interact in determining market structure, with specific reference to the pharmaceutical industry. The key question concerns the observation that—despite high degrees of R&D and marketing-intensity—concentration has been consistently low during the whole evolution of the industry. Standard explanations of this phenomenon refer to the random nature of the innovative process, the patterns of imitation, and the fragmented nature of the market into multiple, independent submarkets. We delve deeper into this issue by using an improved version of our previous “history-friendly” model of the evolution of pharmaceuticals. Thus, we explore the way in which changes in the technological regime and/or in the structure of demand may generate or not substantially higher degrees of concentration. The main results are that, while technological regimes remain fundamental determinants of the patterns of innovation, the demand structure plays a crucial role in preventing the emergence of concentration through a partially endogenous process of discovery of new submarkets. However, it is not simply market fragmentation as such that produces this result, but rather the entity of the “prize” that innovators can gain relative to the overall size of the market. Further, the model shows that emerging industry leaders are innovative early entrants in large submarkets.     

When your contract manufacturer becomes your competitor

PC maker Lenovo started out as a distributor of equipment made by IBM and other companies; now it has formed a joint venture with IBM and will eventually affix its own logo to its computers. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) started out manufacturing vehicles for Volkswagen and GM; now it's preparing to sell its own cars in China, Europe, and North America. Lenovo and SAIC represent a host of formerly anonymous makers of brand-name products that are breaking out of their defined roles and pushing the brands themselves aside. In this article, the authors explore the double-edged relationships original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) forge with their contract manufacturers (CMs). On the one hand, an OEM can reduce its labor costs, free up capital, and improve worker productivity by outsourcing all the manufacturing of a product. The company can then concentrate on value-adding activities--research and development, product design, and marketing, for instance. On the other hand, an OEM that retains a contract manufacturer may find itself immersed in a melodrama replete with promiscuity (the ambitious CM pursues liaisons with other OEMs), infidelity (the OEM's retailers and distributors shift their business to the upstart CM), and betrayal (the brazen CM transmits the OEM's intellectual property to the OEM's rivals or keeps it for itself when the contract is up). OEMs cannot simply terminate their outsourcing arrangements--they need contract manufacturers in order to keep specializing, adding value, and staying competitive. But OEMs can manage these relationships so that they don't become weak or the CMs too strong. Doing so requires modesty about revealing trade secrets; caution about whom one consorts with; and a judicious degree of intimacy, loyalty, and generosity toward partners and customers.     

Stock Market Anomalies: What Can We Learn from Repurchases and Insider Trading?

We examine whether managers’ trading decisions (both at a firm and personal level) are correlated with trading strategies suggested by the operating accruals and the post-earnings announcement drift (SUE) anomalies. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of the use of managerial trading activity to infer managers’ private valuation about their own securities. Our results provide corroborative evidence for the accruals anomaly, i.e., managers’ repurchase and insider trading behavior varies consistently with the information underlying the operating accruals trading strategy. On the other hand, we do not find corroborative evidence for the SUE anomaly.

Understanding the microenterprise sector to design a tailor-made microfinance policy for Cape Verde

Two of the central challenges faced by Cape Verde at the present are the high level of unemployment and the increasing proportion of the population living in (relative) poverty. Microenterprise development can be an effective means of addressing both problems in a developing country like Cape Verde, where microenterprises account for about 50% of employment. In this paper we provide a detailed profile of Cape Verdean microenterprises and microentrepreneurs and investigate the relationship between their characteristics and the resort to outside seed capital. We find a cluster of factors—the microentrepreneur’s age, gender, level of education and reason for being self-employed—which influence significantly the probability of being in need for external start-up capital. The policy implications of these findings for the design of a specific microfinance program for Cape Verde are discussed.