The importance of customer input in the development of very new products

This research explores the acquisition of customer input and its importance in the development of very new products. Data were gathered on 55 product development projects from the computer telephony integration industry – a new industry experiencing rapid technological change. The data were used to test hypotheses concerning the relationships between product newness, the importance of customer input in the development process, and the use of customer intensive market research methods. We found that the importance of customer input increases with market newness of a product up to a point and then drops off for very new products, whereas the importance of customer input increases with technological newness of a product without dropping off. We also found that the importance of customer input significantly increases the use of customer intensive market research methods; whereas, neither market nor technological product newness in themselves had much direct effect on research methods.     

Optimum and Risk-Class Pricing of Annuities

When information on longevity (survival functions) is unknown early in life, individuals have an interest in insuring themselves against moving into different 'risk-classes' as their life expectancy is revealed. The First-Best allocation involves transfers across states of nature. With symmetric information, competitive equilibrium separates different risk classes and cannot provide such transfers because insurance firms are unable to precommit . When utility is invariant to risk-class realisation, the optimum entails uniform consumption and optimum retirement age independent of risk-class and an optimum social security scheme is superior to competitive equilibrium. When preferences depend on risk-class, welfare ranking of systems becomes indeterminate.     

Note on the relation between quantity and price anomalies under externalities

Diamond and Mirrlees (1973) provided conditions to ensure that a good generating external economies (diseconomies) should increase (decrease) in aggregate quantity when moving from a competitive equilibrium to any Pareto optimum. We prove that the same conditions ensure that each individual's equilibrium quantity of this good decreases as its price increases.     

Social Security and the increasing longevity gap

Growth in overall life expectancy is straining the Social Security budget, and the gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor is widening. Motivated by these facts, this paper does four things. First, we develop a simple way to summarize the degree of progressivity in a Social Security system. Second, we show that growth in the life expectancy gap over the last few decades unwinds three-quarters of the progressivity of the Social Security system. Third, we develop simple reforms to Social Security that maintain the progressivity of the system and restore fiscal solvency. Fourth, we estimate the welfare effects of these potential reforms.     

Successfully Managing the Sociocultural Integration Process in International Acquisitions: A Qualitative Analysis of Canon's Acquisition of Océ

Based on a qualitative research approach that comprises in‐depth, semistructured executive interviews, employee observations, company data and external media accounts, this study analyzes the large‐scale acquisition of the Dutch Océ N.V. by the Japanese Canon Inc. Despite their significantly different national cultural heritages and considerably contrasting organizational cultural practices, both companies were able to efficaciously manage the sociocultural integration process and so successfully completed the acquisition. Building on a marriage metaphor model for sociocultural integration in international mergers and acquisitions, this study sketches out explicit links between national cultural value orientations and the respective organizational cultural practices, and discusses key success factors for each of the three stages of the acquisition process (i.e., preacquisition, closing, and postacquisition stages). This article further examines the interconnectedness of these key success factors across these three stages of the acquisition process by discussing interlocking best practices. In so doing, this study provides a more dynamic and encompassing account of the key factors that determine the success of the sociocultural integration process in international acquisitions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Privatization and Its Benefits: Theory and Evidence

Privatization has been a key component of structural reformprograms in both developed and developing economies. The aimof such programs is to achieve higher microeconomic efficiencyand foster economic growth, as well as reduce public sectorborrowing requirements through the elimination of unnecessarysubsidies. Microeconomic theory tells us that incentive andcontracting problems create inefficiencies due to public ownership,given that managers of state-owned enterprises pursue objectivesthat differ from those of private firms (political view) andface less monitoring (management view). Not only are the managers'objectives distorted, but the budget constraints they face arealso softened. The soft-budget constraint emerges from the factthat bankruptcy is not a credible threat to public managers,for it is in the central government's own interest to bail themout in case of financial distress. Empirical evidence showsa robust corroboration of theoretical implications: privatizationincreases profitability and efficiency in both competitive andmonopolistic sectors. Full privatization has a greater impactthan partial privatization and monopolistic sectors show anincrease in profitability that is above the component explainedby increases in productivity, which reflects their market power.From the macroeconomic perspective, no conclusive evidence canbe drawn, but the trends are favorable. (JEL D21, D61, D62,E65)