Mexico and the United States: Common border,common negotiating orientations

With a growing cadre of people conducting business across the U.S.–Mexico border, there is a need for information about the negotiation orientations they are likely to encounter. While information on negotiating orientations is available, it is often anecdotal, stereotyped, and contradictory. Empirical work that systematically compares Mexico and the United States across a range of negotiating dimensions is scarce. We have clarified, refined, and operationalized 12 negotiation dimensions in a comprehensive conceptual framework proposed over 20 years ago by Weiss and Stripp (1985). Our findings suggest that U.S. and Mexican negotiators may have more in common than they think and that negotiation orientations in both countries may run counter to conventional wisdom. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cultural tendencies in negotiation: A comparison of Finland, India, Mexico, Turkey, and the United States

In this era of increased global cooperation, a growing number of negotiators conduct business in multiple countries and, therefore, need access to a systematic comparison of negotiating tendencies across a wide range of countries. Empirical work systematically comparing variations across a range of cultures is scarce. A comparative analysis of negotiating tendencies in five countries is presented. This study establishes the utility of the [Salacuse, J. (1998) Ten ways that culture affects negotiating style: Some survey results. Negotiation Journal, 14(3): 221–235] framework in identifying country differences across five countries, representing five cultural clusters. Significant differences in negotiation orientations both between and within cultures were revealed at a level of complexity not found in previous empirical studies.     

An analysis of the intra-firm sales activities of Japanese multinational enterprises in the United States: 1977 to 1989

This paper examines the activities of the largest Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in the United States by looking at data on exports, imports, and intra-firm trade between the Japanese subsidiaries in the United States and their parent and other foreign groups. It also examines how much of the domestic sales in the United States are accounted for by local production of the Japanese subsidiaries. Sales data provide an indication of the advantages of being multinational, which are mirrored in the growth of the post-investment sales of overseas units (both manufacturing and non-manufacturing). Data on the flows and stocks of foreign direct investment (FDI) represent the initial decisions to undertake FDI and largely ignore the learning effects of having overseas production.The authors are from the City University of Hong Kong and NORTACK Software Limited. We would like to thank the Editor, Dr Leung Hing-Man, the anonymous referees, and Don Daly, Wendy Dobson, Hiroaki Izumi, Terutomo Ozawa, Alan M Rugman and Rob Tran for their helpful comments. All errors and omissions, however, remain the responsibility of the authors.     

Competition in the electricity industry in England and Wales

When the electricity industry was privatized, the governmentmade structural changes to encourage competition in generationand in supply to consumers. The conventional power stationswere only divided between two companies, however, and we showthat duopolistic competition in an unregulated spot market mightimply undesirably high prices. Most sales are hedged in thecontract market, which makes the spot market more competitive,and a realistic threat of entry could also force generatorsto keep their prices down. In the event, a large amount of entrytook place, supported by the regional electricity companies'franchise monopoly over smaller consumers. That monopoly endsin 1998, so that further entry might become very difficult,while competition between firms already in the generation marketis still limited. Vertical integration between the major generatorsand regional electricity companies might make entry even harder,and should be blocked until the industry is more competitive.     

A transactions data analysis of nonsynchronous trading

Weekly returns of stock portfolios exhibit substantial autocorrelation.Analytical studies suggest that nonsynchronous trading is capableof explaining from 5% to 65% of the autocorrelation. The varyingimportance of nonsynchronous trading in these studies arisesprimarily from differing assumptions regarding nontrading periodsof stocks. We simulate the effects of nonsynchronous tradingby sampling stock returns from a return generating process usingtransactions data to obtain the precise time of each stock'slast trade. We find that simulated weekly portfolio returnsexhibit autocorrelations that are roughly 25% that of theirobserved (CRSP) weekly returns.     

Size, technology, complexity, and structural differentiation: toward a theoretical synthesis.

This paper proposes a theoretical synthesis of the concepts of organizational size, technology, complexity, and structural differentiation. It suggests and finds that the most important determinant of differentiation in the division of labor is the scope of an organization's task, a technological dimension, and not organizational size. Neither horizontal nor vertical differentiation is thought to be determined by size while the scope of the task is proposed as a determinant of horizontal differentiation. The findings, however, support only the inference of a moderate causal connection between either size or task scope and either form of differentiation. Throughout the analysis and discussion the contrast between causal inference based on associations of levels and change rates is discussed. When dealing with the organizational processes addressed in this paper, both associations must be examined to adequately portray the complexity of the causal processes inferred.