跨国公司在华物流外包对企业绩效影响的实证研究——以企业战略为调节变量

在现有理论文献和调查的基础上,提出假设,利用问卷统计分析,对跨国公司在华实施的企业战略在物流外包与企业绩效的调节作用进行了实证检验,研究结果表明,跨国公司在华实施的成本领先战略会促进物流外包对财务绩效、市场绩效和运作绩效的正向影响;跨国公司在华实施的差异化战略对物流外包与企业绩效间的关系不产生影响。     

机会导向型的新技术企业商业化战略选择——基于技术属性与产业环境匹配的视角

技术能力到竞争优势转化过程中,商业化战略选择是一个重要的影响因素。新技术企业创业机会与过程的独特性使其战略选择区别于一般的新创企业。基于此,本文认为应该从创业机会的类型入手选择有针对性的商业化战略,并按照技术属性与产业技术环境两个维度对机会类型进行了划分,提出了二者匹配视角下的机会导向型新技术企业商业化战略。     

Firm size and types of innovation

We propose a general theory of innovation that illustrates the relative benefits of performing process versus product R&D when firm size is endogenous. A firm's size, scope, and R&D portfolio are shown to reflect the same underlying characteristic of the firm, namely manufacturing efficiency. We demonstrate that efficient firms become larger, have greater scope, and perform more of both process and product R&D. In light of decreasing returns to R&D, this implies small firms obtain more product innovations per dollar of R&D than large firms, which is consistent with evidence we present that small firms are more innovative than large firms as they obtain more patent counts and citations per dollar of R&D.     

Ontology and Feminist Theorizing

There are large research, policy, and economic gaps between the ways US researchers and policy makers address the work/family bind amongst middleclass professionals and poor lone mothers. This is clearly seen in US welfare reform, an important piece of work/family legislation in the 1990s. The new rules make the work/family binds worse for low-income, poor mothers and do not alleviate poverty. With its clear expectation that poor mothers be employed, the legislation opens up new avenues to revamp low-wage work for breadwinners and to socialize the costs of caring for family. Closing the literature gap may help to close the policy gap, which, in turn, would promote more income equality.     

The Future European Labor Supply: The Critical Role of the Family

The European employment strategy initiated in 1997 is critically dependent upon the further integration of women into the labor market. The European Union has set a specific target employment rate for women of 60 percent by 2010 and is also committed to providing more and better child care facilities. This gender focus is reinforced by the requirement for gender mainstreaming in all aspects of European employment policy. There is an implied Europe-wide, universal policy of encouraging female labor-market participation and reducing the care work performed by domestic labor. However, the European Commission continues to have limited competence in areas of family, social, and welfare policy. As a result, these common employment objectives for women are thus being pursued against a background of quite different systems of social, family, welfare, and indeed labor-market organization. These systems have different economic and employment implications, such that the outcomes of the common European employment strategy will also be highly variable.     

Book and Film Reviews

Economic theory as applied to the family should increase our understanding of the phenomena we are studying, and allow us to implement fruitful intervention in cases where we are not satisfied with what is occurring. Much if not all of the theory of the family fails to achieve these aims. Examples are given from the most recent edition of Gary Becker's Theory of the Family, where the analysis leads to conclusions that are, on their face, preposterous. This kind of theorizing leads, as does almost all neoclassical theory, to a conclusion that the institutions depicted are benign, and that government intervention would be useless at best and probably harmful. But it isn't necessarily so.     

Market-based capabilities and financial performance of firms: insights into marketing’s contribution to firm value

While there is recognition that market-based capabilities contribute to a firm’s financial performance, the exposition is largely conceptual (Srivastava et al. Journal of Marketing 62:2–18, 1998; Journal of Marketing 63:168–179, 1999). Using a resource based view of the firm, the present study proposes that (1) market-based assets and capabilities of a firm impacts (2) performance in three market-facing business processes (new product development, supply-chain and customer management), which in turn, influence (3) the firm’s financial performance. It develops related hypotheses and tests the framework empirically. The study also examines for the first time the interrelationship among the three business processes and their impact on the market value of firms. Further, the study examines the moderating influence of two organizational variables—size and age of the firm. Overall, the major contribution of the study is that it offers a process linkage between capabilities, process performance and financial performance. The results of this research will provide strategic insights to managers on optimal customer management, product development and supply chain strategies.

Welfare Effects of Foreign Direct Investment: Cost Saving vs. Signaling

We compare the effects of two types of foreign direct investment (FDI) (viz., FDI for trade cost saving and FDI for signaling foreign cost of production) on consumer surplus, profit of the host-country firm and host-country welfare. We show that the effects are dramatically different. If the reason for FDI is to save trade cost, FDI (compared to export) always makes the consumers better off and the host-country producer worse off, while the effect on host-country welfare is ambiguous. However, if the FDI is to signal the foreign cost of production, FDI (compared to export) always makes the host-country producer better off and increases host-country welfare, while it makes the consumers almost always worse off.     

Why do some firms contract out production? Evidence from firm-level panel data

This paper examines the determinants of self-employment and transitions from salaried employment to self-employment using two sets of Finnish data from the 1990s. The results show that capital constraints have only a minor effect on new business starts. Human capital, in the form of intergenerational links in self-employment and psychological factors play a much larger role. The paper also provides empirical evidence that less risk-averse workers are more likely to become entrepreneurs.     

Exchange rate volatility and the role of regional currency linkages: the ASEAN case

As the economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have moved towards closer economic ties and trade integration in recent years, the establishment of exchange rate stability is becoming an important regional policy concern, particularly in the wake of the Asian currency crisis of 1997. This paper examines the exchange rate volatility of the currencies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand between 1974 and 1999. Using variance decomposition (VDC) methods and impulse response functions, which are VAR-related estimation techniques, the study also investigates the regional currency linkages which may have played a role in transmitting exchange rate fluctuations. The results indicate that, in spite of the adoption of the crawling peg exchange regime following the breakup of the Bretton Woods system, all of the five ASEAN currencies experienced volatility, with the Indonesian rupiah posting the highest volatility level. The switch to de facto pegging against the US dollar in the mid-1980s helped to stabilize all ASEAN currencies with the exception of the Malaysian ringgit. Each of the five currencies became more susceptible to instabilities in other ASEAN currencies in the post-1985 period. Consistent with the experience of the Asian currency crisis, the Thai baht was the main channel through which regional currency fluctuations were transmitted.