Globalization frustrated: The case of white goods

This paper challenges the common view that mature industries are always ripe for global strategies. Based on data from the European Domestic Appliance industry, this paper shows how changing economic conditions can diminish the value of global strategies. Critical in these shifts were simultaneous rises in demand for variety (that eroded the benefits of scale and continental market share) and decreases in manufacturing scale (that permitted new supply options), which reduced the extent of the strategic market to national dimensions. They added complexity that decreased the profitability of the global players and increased that of national strategies. The fluctuating fortunes of leading firms are shown to have been caused primarily by choices of strategy, not by national factor costs.     

Changes in the EC licensing environment and their effect on licensing as a strategy for Europe 1992

The further integration of the European Community (EC) is intended to create one large, integrated market and a semistandardized business environment throughout the member countries. This study investigates the current status of the technology licensing environment in the EC and analyzes the returns that a licensor can achieve by locating a licensee in each of the EC countries. This analysis may be important to any firm which has chosen a licensing strategy as its approach to operating in the EC, because locational choice of licensee can affect a licensor's financial returns.     

Orange County Bankruptcy: Financial Contagion in the Municipal Bond and Bank Equity Markets

We examine the spillover wealth effects of the Orange County, California bankruptcy announcement in December 1994 on municipal bonds, municipal bond funds, and bank stocks. This bankruptcy is prominent because of unprecedented losses and because it was caused by a highly leveraged derivatives strategy rather than a shortage of tax revenues and excess spending. We find contagion in the bond market with significantly negative abnormal returns for municipal bond funds without direct exposure to Orange County and for non‐Orange County municipal bonds. In addition, our findings suggest the contagion spills over to the common stocks of investment and commercial banks that deal in or use derivatives; however, the equities of banks unexposed to derivatives are not affected.     

Management and the Professions: How Cracked is That Glass Ceiling?

All prestigious or highly-paid occupations in Britain are dominated by men: this is as true of the public sector as it is of industry. This article examines the evidence for discrimination in the public sector. It deals with both the situation at work and the one at home. It looks at various explanations as to why this is the case, as well as the evidence on how men and women deal with the inequality. The author concludes that there are good reasons why men and women do not see or confront the issues discussed in her article. Unless men and women wake up to the fact that we live in an unequal society and wish to see the glass ceiling well and truly broken, little is likely to change.     

Capital market trading volume: an overview and some preliminary conclusions

This paper suggests an explanation for the heavy trading volumeobserved on the US capital markets, the world's largest. Heterodoxeconomic theory puts much of this volume down to speculation.Mainstream theory tends to support this thesis, either directlyor indirectly, by giving space to the idea that trading activityis for the most part exogenous to the functioning of the capitalmarkets. The central hypothesis of this paper is that the tradingvolumes observed are an endogenous feature of the capital markets,because they are to a great extent determined by the needs ofthe institutional investors who predominate on these markets.This endogeneity of trading is posited in connection with theemergence of a new ‘core–satellite’ paradigmin institutional investment, a development that essentiallymanifests the asset-management industry's transformation froma small industry serving a few wealthy clients to a mass industryserving large sections of the population.     

Performance Monitoring in the Australian Public Service: a Government-Wide Analysis

This article considers the applicability of performance monitoring in the public sector. It analyses performance information across Australian government in order to identify, if possible, the basic attributes of effective performance monitoring, and finds significant variations. The authors conclude that varying levels of complexity in defining ends, and in attributing the achievement of objectives to particular means, may account for most of the differences. However, a number of exceptions suggest there is also room for adaptation.     

AN EVALUATION OF PROCESS‐ORIENTED SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORKS

Supply chain management (SCM) is implemented by integrating corporate functions using business processes within and across companies. Several process‐oriented frameworks for SCM have been proposed but only two of these provide sufficient detail to enable implementation. We evaluate the Supply‐Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) framework and The Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF) framework using four criteria and identify their relative strengths and weaknesses.