The Governance of Networks and Economic Power: The Nature and Impact of Subcontracting Relationships

Abstract.  Current debate on networking focuses on network structures and firm strategies. In this perspective, theoretical analysis has been concerned with allocative issues. This essay proposes a different interpretation. Starting from the existing theoretical framework, we emphasise the nature and the implications of different types of networks with respect to socio‐economic development from a distributional point of view. Within this context, we develop the analysis of subcontracting starting from the concept of economic power. We then provide an analysis of governance in production by considering the attitudes and the nature of the actors involved. The externalisation of activities by large transnationals, which characterises current corporate restructuring, is often related to the search for greater flexibility, but also for greater power over governments, labour, and subcontractors. Differently, networks based on the mutual dependence of actors, which are not necessarily built around a large firm, could – under particular conditions – reach large production scales or more complex scopes without breaking the links with territorial systems, thus including local objectives in the strategic decision‐making process. Our conclusion is that the impact of subcontracting networks varies enormously. This is crucial to an understanding of future trends and possibilities. Not least, firms and public policy agencies need to understand the implications of different forms of subcontracting network and how those forms actually differ in practice.     

对跨国公司滥用知识产权行为的反垄断规制--从思科诉华为案谈起

知识产权是一面双刃剑,在知识经济时代,知识产权在推动经济发展和社会进步中的作用越来越大,但知识产权也存在滥用的问题。随着我国加入世贸组织,跨国公司在我国市场上的垄断行为都同知识产权的滥用分不开,而且这种趋势还将有蔓延的可能。为防止跨国公司滥用其正当获得的知识产权,从反垄断法的视角对滥用知识产权的行为进行法律规制,以期对知识产权行使中有效竞争秩序的建立有所裨益。     

中小企业信用担保体系的发展方向与政府角色

文章分析了我国信用担保体系的发展与变革问题。综合西方学者的理论观点,认为信贷市场需要信用担保的原因,主要是信用担保可以有效缓解信贷市场信息不对称困境,保障贷款者的利益不受或少受损失;可以缓解信贷市场的信贷配给问题;信用担保能够传递借款者的信息;信用担保可以强化债务信用。我国从上世纪９０年代初期开始启动了信用担保体系建设,形成了“一体两翼三层”的格局,目前却陷入了发展困境。研究认为,从我国中小企业的特色出发,应大力发展互助式信用担保机构,减少政策性担保机构的市场份额,建立以互助式信用担保为主体的新体系。政府应选择适当的方式重点扶持互助式担保机构的发展。     

International entrepreneurial marketing strategies of MNCs: Bricolage as practiced by marketing managers

The extant research lacks information on entrepreneurial marketing in large international firms. This study explores the international entrepreneurial marketing strategies of multinational corporations (MNCs), and its results reveal that MNC marketing managers use bricolage to develop international entrepreneurial marketing. A novel finding of the study is that the international entrepreneurial marketing strategies of MNCs include co-innovation, accelerating customer value, and international expansion based on regional market leadership. Marketing managers use both parallel and selective bricolage in their international entrepreneurial marketing. Environmental uncertainty and entrepreneurship culture are important drivers of the implementation of bricolage to develop international entrepreneurial marketing. The research findings can inform MNC management of the options available to utilize corporate venturing to facilitate bricolage and in turn to realize international entrepreneurial marketing strategies.     

基金公司拓展电子营销渠道探析

电子商务是基金公司改变依赖传统代销渠道、建立低成本及自主可控的新型营销渠道的有效手段,如何有效拓展基金销售通路、提升基金销售效率是基金公司日益关注的问题。通过基金公司当前网上交易模式的比较与分析,提出基金公司开展电子商务的优势,认为目前制约基金公司电子营销发展的"瓶颈"在于电子支付与结算,并给出基金公司如何有效开展电子商务及提升电子交易业务的若干建议。     

中小企业集群协同管理形成机制研究

近年来,企业集群使中小企业获取了规模经济的效益。虽然中小企业企业集群已获得了很大发展,但仍然存在很多的问题,从而导致企业集群的不稳定或脆弱性,影响企业集群的持续协调发展。针对这一问题,中小企业集群必须形成有效的协同才能进一步发挥集群的竞争优势。中小企业的协同管理离不开完善的协同管理机制,研究中小企业集群协同管理形成的过程,分析集群协同形成的机制,将有利于促进协同的生成和发展进化。     

基于竞争战略视角的跨国公司R&D机构区位机理研究——以诺基亚为例

目前对跨国公司R&D区位的研究大多站在区域要素供给的角度,探讨影响R&D机构布局的区位因子。实际上,在全球竞争时代,跨国公司R&D机构布局在考虑投资地R&D区位规模的同时,还受到企业内在因素的影响。从竞争战略视角出发,以诺基亚公司为例,研究跨国公司R&D机构的全球区位机理。结果发现,R&D机构的空间布局受到研发网络/战略的总体控制,并受生产单元、竞争对手、合作伙伴等利益相关体的影响,同时与东道国各类要素产生层层耦合。从诺基亚案例分析中得出若干启示,以期为我国城市R&D产业发展提供重要参考。     

The Social Cost of Environmental Solutions

This article assesses the social consequences of efforts by multinational corporations to capture business value through recycling, reusing materials and reducing waste. Synthesising evidence from the global environmental justice and feminist and international political economy (IPE) literatures, it analyses the changing social property relations of global recycling chains. The authors argue that, although recycling more would seem to make good ecological sense, corporate programmes can rely on and further ingrain social patterns of harm and exploitation, particularly for the burgeoning labour force that depends on recyclables for subsistence living. Turning the waste stream into a profit stream also relies on prison labour in some places, such as in the United States where the federal government operates one of the country's largest electronics recycling programmes. The ongoing corporatisation of recycling, the authors argue further, is devaluing already marginalised populations within the global economy. Highlighting the need to account for the dynamism between social and environmental change within IPE scholarship, the article concludes by underlining the ways in which ‘green commerce’ programmes can shift capital's contradictions from nature onto labour.     

FDI三方博弈分析

跨国公司、母国和东道国之间存在着错综复杂的竞争合作关系,三者有着不同的博弈目标。本文建立了来自发达国家的大型跨国公司及其母国,及我国作为东道国参与的三方博弈模型,诠释了现实否定最优解的原因,得出东道国应采取措施,尽量减少冲突支付对收益的消极影响的结论,提出了营造政策环境、健全法律体系、消除“心理距离”以及提高政府效率等提高东道国收益的建议。     

Equilibrium coalition structures in the presence of foreign direct investment

This paper incorporates foreign direct investment (FDI) into the examination of trading bloc formation with endogenously determined coalition structures. In so doing, we build a three-country model, in which firms serve foreign markets either by exporting or undertaking FDI, and consider a coalition formation game with the Coalition Proof Nash Equilibrium as an equilibrium concept. We find that the equilibrium coalition structure varies upon firms characterization before and after the formation of a trading bloc. As in the literature, when all firms are exporters in the pre- and post-formation, bilateralism can be an equilibrium outcome. However, when trade barriers are not so high as to be trade-prohibitive and the environment is favorable to multinational activities in the pre- or post-formation, only global free trade will prevail as an equilibrium coalition structure.