Product quality: Impact of interdepartmental interactions

The authors examine the role of organizational factors affecting interdepartmental interactions and their subsequent effects on product quality. Results from a national study suggest that product quality is affected by interdepartmental conflict and connectedness. Importantly, the linkage between interdepartmental conflict and product quality appears to be robust across varying levels of market turbulence and technological turbulence. In contrast, interdepartmental connectedness appears to be more important for product quality under conditions of high market and technological turbulence. The results also indicate that interdepartmental interactions are influenced by leadership characteristics (risk aversion of top managers), reward system orientation, and organization structure (centralization, departmentalization, and hierarchical levels). Managerial implications and directions for future work are proposed. His research interests focus on marketing strategy, marketing management, and new product management. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, and other journals. His research focuses on implementing and controlling marketing, market/environmental orientation, and customer responses to advertising. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Review of Marketing, and other journals. His research interests include market orientation, marketing strategy, sales management, and industrial marketing. His work has appeared in a number of journals including theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, andStrategic Management Journal.     

Import-Price Uncertainty, Production Decisions, and Relative Factor Shares

The effects of import-price uncertainty on factor income in Switzerland are estimated. The production-theory approach is used to derive the import demand function from an expected utility maximization problem, treating imports as an input to the technology. The model is also used to test for risk aversion and to assess the impact of uncertainty on the volume of imports and gross output. Evidence is found that, for most years, labor has been relatively more vulnerable to uncertainty than has capital.     

Capital Flows and Exchange Rate Volatility in India: How Crucial Are Reserves?

This paper tests if the adequacy of reserves helps reduce exchange rate volatility in an environment of financial globalization, market‐determined exchange rate and macroeconomic imbalances. It exploits the difference in the period after 2010 when India did not accumulate reserves but faced higher capital flow pressures, relative to a previous managed‐float period marked by significant absorption of surplus capital flows. Along with other determinants, the sensitivity of rupee volatility is examined. The paper finds that adequate reserve holdings significantly reduce exchange rate volatility irrespective of the exchange rate regime; the effect is more through influence upon market sentiment and confidence than actual intervention. It contributes to existing evidence on the role of reserves in mitigating exchange rate volatility amid capital flow swings and offers insights into the policy environment depicted in the trilemma.     

Buyer-supplier relational characteristics and joint decision making

This paper explores propositions dealing with the influence of buyer-supplier relational characteristics on their joint decision making. Specifically, the proposed conceptual framework focuses on the link between three relational constructs (trust, commitment, relationship maturity) and two types of joint decision making (strategic and tactical). Strategic decisions are those that “expand the pie” for both parties (integrative decisions), and tactical decisions are those that “divide the pie” between the two parties (distributive decisions). We propose that the effect of relational characteristics on joint decision making is likely to be moderated by the characteristics of the supplier organization (such as team orientation) and its environment (such as competitive intensity). We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications and possible extensions of the theoretical model.     

U.S. Imports by origin: A system approach

Zusammenfassung U.S.-Importe nach Ursprungsl?ndern: Ein systematischer Ansatz.- Die amerikanischen Import-Nachfragefunktionen werden für sieben Ursprungsregionen gesch?tzt. Sie alle werden aus demselben Strukturmodell abgeleitet und gemeinsam gesch?tzt unter Beachtung der Restriktionen, die sich aus der Nachfragetheorie ergeben. Dieses Verfahren stellt sicher, da\ das System von Importnachfragefunktionen intern konsistent ist; die statistische Effizienz wird erh?ht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, da\ die Elastizit?ten der Importe in bezug auf den eigenen Preis je nach Ursprungsregion sehr stark voneinander abweichen und da\ die besten Substitutionsm?glichkeiten zwischen Einfuhren aus Japan und denen aus einigen europ?ischen L?ndern bestehen.

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Resumen Las importaciones de los EEUU según su origen: un análisis sistemático. - Se estiman funciones de demanda de importaciones de los EEUU para siete regiones de origen. Las funciones de importaciones son derivadas de un mismo modelo estructural y estimadas simultáneamente respetando las restricciones sugeridas por la teoría de la demanda. Este procedimiento asegura que el sistema de funciones de demanda de importaciones sea consistente y que se mejore la eficiencia estadística. Los resultados indican que las elasticidadesprecio de la demanda de importaciones varían ampliamente entre las regiones de origen y que las mejores oportunidades para sustituír importaciones se encuentran en las importaciones provenientes del Japón y de algunos países de Europa.

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Résumé Importations des E.U. par origine: une approche systématique. - L’auteur estime des fonctions de la demande importatrice des E.U. pour sept régions d’origine. Toutes les fonctions d’importation sont dérivées du même modèle structurel, et elles sont estimées en commun sous les restrictions suggérées par la théorie de la demande. Cette procédure assure que le système des fonctions de demande importatrice est internement consistant et l’efficience statistique est augmentée. Les résultats indiquent que les propres élasticités de prix des importations varient largement entre des régions d’origine et que les possibilités de substitution sont les plus grandes entre les importations du Japon et les importations de quelques pays européens.

     

Oil characteristics and the U. S. demand for foreign crude by region of origin

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Economics Association Meetings in Winnipeg, Manitoba, May 1986. We are grateful to Paul Bradley, Ragaei El Mallakh, Phil Graves, and John Livernois for their comments, and to Pierre Allan and Edward Azar for helpful suggestions.     

A Survey of Agricultural Household Models: Recent Findings and Policy Implications

Semicommercial farms that produce multiple crops make up a largepart of the agricultural sector in developing economies. Thesefarms or agricultural households combine two fundamental unitsof microeconomic analysis: the household and the firm. Traditionaleconomic theory has dealt with these units separately. But indeveloping economies in which peasant farms dominate, theirinterdependence is of crucial importance. Researchers at theFood Research Institute, Stanford University, and at the WorldBank have developed models of agricultural households that combineproducer and consumer behavior in a theoretically consistentfashion. Recent empirical applications of these models haveextended them and expanded the range of policy issues whichcan be investigated using this general framework. This article reports the results of empirical applications ofthis model in India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea,Malaysia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Taiwan, and Thailand.It provides a comparative analysis of the policy implicationsof the approach for such matters as the welfare of farm households,the size of marketed surplus, the demand for nonagriculturalgoods and services, and for hired labor, and the availabilityof budget revenues and foreign exchange.     

Functional income distribution and effective demand in India: An applied post Keynesian model

This article is an attempt to understand the relationship between functional income distribution and aggregate demand in India. To this end, the article (a) highlights trends in growth and class distribution of income in India; (b) constructs a post Keynesian macro model that links short run growth with profit share, where the latter is itself driven by movements in output and real exchange rate; (c) discusses and, wherever required, estimates key parameters relevant to the Indian case; and (d) simulates the model and discusses the effect of shocks to distributive as well as autonomous demand variables on growth performance. The article finds that, although a possibility of wage-led growth in India cannot be ruled out, by and large, distributive shocks do not have a strong impact on output growth. On the other hand, an increase in public expenditure growth, although it has a strong effect on output growth, tilts income distribution toward profit earners. A comprehensive agenda involving greater public expenditure and higher wages to stimulate growth and improve distribution is therefore recommended.     

Marketing’s roles in innovation in business-to-business firms: Status, issues, and research agenda

A project funded by the Institute for the Study of Business Markets to develop an understanding of the current state of business-to-business marketing and a research agenda for the field identified a lack of understanding of how the marketing function can or should best contribute to firms’ innovation efforts as the top priority. A workshop of senior academics and research-oriented practitioners explored this topic further, identifying four specific themes: (1) improving customer needs understanding and customer involvement in developing new products, (2) innovating beyond the lab, (3) disseminating and implementing research findings in firms, and (4) marketing’s overall role in innovation. This article defines these themes, sketches the current status of knowledge about each theme, frames practitioners’ issues with them, and proposes research agendas for each theme to move the field forward. The goal is to encourage rigorously executed academic research that can also help firms innovate more successfully.