Social and organisational implications of CAD usage: a grounded theory in a fashion company

This paper focuses on the process of Computer Aided Design (CAD) diffusion into a group engaged in the development of innovative products. Adopting an ethnographic approach, we build a grounded theory for interpreting CAD usage in terms of the interplay between variables such as management orientation, training, actors' specialisation and deskilling, availability of shared archives, technological discontinuities between organisational areas.     

Die Wirkung der Positionierung eines Zulieferunternehmens auf das Vertrauen des Kunden

Zusammenfassung Aus bisherigen Studien lassen sich kaum Handlungsempfehlungen ableiten, welche Positionierung eines Zulieferunternehmens sich besonders vorteilhaft auf das Vertrauen eines Kunden auswirkt. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden die Wirkungen von vier Positionierungsstrategien, die Zulieferunternehmen zur Verfügung stehen, auf das Vertrauen ihrer Abnehmer aus der Automobilindustrie untersucht. Diese Strategien bestehen in der Anpassung an Kundenprozesse, in Serviceorientierung, in Flexibilit?t und in der Verwendung von Kompetenzsignalen gegenüber dem Markt. Wir zeigen, dass die Anpassung an Kundenprozesse auf Grund der hohen Spezifit?t der damit verbundenen Investitionen die st?rkste positive Wirkung auf das Vertrauen des Kunden aufweist und dass Kompetenzsignale gegenüber dem Markt kein geeignetes Instrument zur F?rderung des Kundenvertrauens sind, wenn das Zulieferunternehmen für den Abnehmer eine hohe Bedeutung besitzt.

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The effects of a supplier’s positioning strategy on buyers’ trust

Summary Many studies have identified measures that are able to enhance partners’ trust in business-to-business relationships. However, it is not known which measures are more effective than others or under which conditions certain measures might be helpful or not. In the present study the effects of four possible positioning strategies on buyer’s trust are examined. The positioning strategies considered here are the supplier’s adaptations regarding its customer’s processes, its service orientation, its flexibility, and market-signals stressing the supplier’s competence. We found that, due to the high specificity of the required investments, adaptations of the supplier’s processes are the strongest instrument to enhance buyers’ trust relative to the other three strategies. We could also show that investments in market signals stressing the supplier’s competence are not effective if the supplier is of high importance to the customer.

     

Socially Responsible Investing and Climate Change: Contradictions and Challenges

This article explores the contradiction between the articulated investment policies, screening criteria or ethical charters of socially responsible investment funds and their actions demonstrated by their portfolio selection practice. The paper provides a background to socially responsible investment and Australia's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. A discussion of renewable energy options lays the foundation for our main assertion: that this set of possible alternatives provides some new and more environmentally robust options that will better complement the underlying philosophy of funds in the socially responsible investment sector.     

Trends in Disaggregated Import and Export Prices in Europe: Implications for the Trade and Wages Debate

We consider carefully the evidence from traded prices (as proxied by unit values) concerning the transmission of the effects of globalisation to domestic labour markets. Using standard index number techniques we decompose changes in sectoral import and export unit values into movements due to changes in pure prices of the initial bundle of goods imported or exported and changes due to upgrading of that bundle. Looking at the imports of selected European countries of textiles, clothing and footwear relative to engineering products we find evidence of strongly falling pure prices of the unskilled intensive products relative to the skilled products in the 1980s. This reinforces the view that import prices can capture the impact of globalisation in terms of falling relative prices for products produced with the intensive use of unskilled labour. However, the trends are not common across all the unskilled sectors; footwear is clearly an exception. In the absence of detailed domestic data, we look for reactions by domestic firms to increased import competition in movements in the price and composition of exports. We find evidence of stiff price competition from imports being associated with similar movements in export prices and no support for the view that import competition from low–wage countries has led to upgrading of the quality of exports.     

小额贷款能扫多少“钱荒”

总是有那么多诱人的概念，小额信贷的创始人尤努斯把他的发明上升到“让乞丐都能赚钱”的功能。如果说真是如此，那世界上还有穷人吗？可是，凡是存在必然有他的道理，小额信贷存在着，而且还在扩张着。按照尤努斯的说法，在小额贷款的帮助下，中小企业解决个把融资问题应该不成问题，如果乞丐都能靠此转变，那么中小企业总不会连乞丐都不如，小额信贷真的能够救赎那些缺钱缺得心慌的企业吗？     

Do Changes in Democracy Affect the Political Budget Cycle? Evidence from Mexico

The previous empirical literature in opportunistic election cycles attempts to identify whether there is a significant impact of the election calendar on economic policy. The econometric analysis implemented in this paper goes a step further, seeking to test whether a country's time-varying degree of democracy affects the way in which economic policy is chosen as elections approach. A simple econometric model is estimated for the case of Mexico's fiscal policy between 1957 and 1997. The estimation reveals the government's strong systematic use of public spending in infrastructure and current transfers as a means to earn votes. Most importantly, we show that the magnitude of the election cycle has been exacerbated during the country's most democratic episodes.     

Finding Closest Targets in Non-Oriented DEA Models: The Case of Convex and Non-Convex Technologies

This paper draws attention for the fact that traditional Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models do not provide the closest possible targets (or peers) to inefficient units, and presents a procedure to obtain such targets.It focuses on non-oriented efficiency measures (which assume that production units are able to control, and thus change, inputs and outputs simultaneously) both measured in relation to a Free Disposal Hull (FDH) technology and in relation to a convex technology. The approaches developed for finding close targets are applied to a sample of Portuguese bank branches.     

Knowledge Content and Worker Participation in Environmental Management at NUMMI

ABSTRACT This paper looks at, within the context of lean production, how and in what ways employees participate in environmental improvements. The paper uses data from an automobile plant well known for its participative work structures, New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI), to look more closely at the dynamics of worker participation in environmental management (i.e. management of pollution and waste). Findings show that while workers possess important contextual knowledge, the importance of process, intra‐organizational and external knowledge make the role of specialist staff (both internal and external to the environmental function) critically important for environmental improvements. Additionally, environmental improvements often required a combination of more than one knowledge type. The paper discusses how the culture and management structure at NUMMI and other lean plants encourage this combination. Implications for environmental management, lean production, and future research on worker participation are discussed.