Business groups,the financial market and modernization*

Business groups are an important aspect of the industrial organization of many developing countries. This paper develops a theory suggesting that they may be organizations that facilitate modernization in the presence of financial market constraints. An important function of the stockmarket is the diversification of risk that comes with specialized, productive technology. But in the face of serious information problems a well functioning stockmarket may fail to emerge, relegating the economy to a low productivity‐poverty trap. Bilateral links between a firm and a group of others may be a more cost effective way to achieve risk‐sharing. Such business groups may be feasible when a full‐fledged stockmarket is not. As modernization takes place, either because information problems become less severe or more firms enter the economy, business groups actually expand in size before being abruptly rendered obsolete by the stockmarket. This is consistent with empirical results from a number of emerging economies.     

Formal business process engineering based on graph grammars

Designing and managing a company's specific landscape and its business processes has been identified as a great challenge for several years. Business processes are highly dynamic and distributed and can only rarely be planned, modeled and analyzed completely. For a computer-aided business process system, which supports the designing and managing process, first of all a powerful uniform formalism is necessary, where all necessary knowledge concerning company's and its processes can be represented. In this paper we will concentrate on the introduction of such a formal methodology to describe business processes, company organization structures and information technology structures in one uniform formalism. The ideas we use are mainly based on methods from graph grammars, process management, Artificial Intelligence and business process (re)engineering.     

Tinbergen in De Economist

Jan Tinbergen's scientific writings cover six main areas of research. His articles in De Economist represent these areas; in some cases the contributions to De Economist were of a pioneering nature (business cycles, economic models, economic integration); in others De Economist was the first or even single outlet for Tinbergen's work. This article provides an overview of these contributions. The wide scope of Tinbergen's areas of research goes together with a unity in approach, the characteristics of which are: policy relevance, quantification and measurement, balance in analysis and presentation, and learning from experience. Tinbergen's articles in De Economist bear witness to this approach which at the time also met with scepticism and resistance as this overview shows. According to Houthakker, Tinbergen's main contribution may be that, amidst the pleas of interest groups and the slogans of the laity, an attempt is made that the voice of the professional economic researcher be heard. Tinbergen's work still sets an agenda for both economic research and policy making.     

Are emerging economies less efficient? Performance persistence and the impact of business group affiliation

By drawing a theoretical distinction between the persistence of superior and poor performance, we reconcile the conflicting predictions of the ‘revisionist’ and accepted views on the persistence of firm performance in emerging economies. Using a sample of manufacturing firms in the United States and India, we show that superior firm performance in emerging economies persists only as much as developed economies in line with the revisionist argument. We also provide evidence consistent with the accepted view that poor firm performance persists longer in emerging economies compared to developed economies. Further exploration of the latter shows that, contrary to predictions of extant theories, firms in emerging economies that are affiliated with an MNC or a business group have a greater persistence of poor performance than firms that are unaffiliated with these intermediate governance structures, and hence would be better off operating at arm's length. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中石化上游领域竞争力和抗风险能力的定量分析

在分析石油公司上游领域竞争力影响因素的基础上，提出了定量评价上游 领域竞争力和抗油价风险能力的定量评价方法，按上游综合竞争力指标将世界石油公司分为三类，第一类公司的指标值均在90以上，第二类公司在55－70，第三类公司在25－35。分析表明中石化集团上游领域竞争力较低，承受体油价的时间很短，但是，中石化集团公司上游竞争力和抗风险能力有很大的改善余地，并提出提高竞争力和抗风险能力的措施和建议。     

从博弈论看商务谈判僵局的本质和处理

商务谈判中的僵局是谈判双方都不愿看到但又不得不面对的难题。只有了解了商务谈判僵局产生的本质才能够更好地处理好谈判中的僵局。从博弈论的角度,对商务谈判僵局的本质进行了分析,指出在挖掘共同利益的过程中既可以寻求到瓜分共同利益的有效途径,又可寻找到共同利益与个体利益实现的最佳结合点。     

电子商务的发展对市场营销的影响

电子商务正在逐渐改变着传统的商务模式。电子商务的发展改变了市场营销的环境,影响着消费者的消费行为,进而使得企业的营销理念和营销管理中心发生着转移。     

深圳中心商务区的区位转移及其机制

20世纪80年代形成的罗湖商业区可以看作是深圳目前的中心商务区，正在建设中的深圳中心区（福田中心区）将会是未来深圳的中心商务区。在深圳城市经济重心西移等内外固定的作用下，深圳商务中心区西移趋势已经形成。本文主要就福田中心区的成长和深圳中心商务区由罗湖向福田转移的机制作了探讨。     

基于适应性商务智能的虚拟企业合作伙伴选择模型

合作伙伴选择是虚拟企业运行中至关重要的问题。迅速而准确地找到合适的合作伙伴并实现协调运作，直接影响到虚拟企业合作绩效和整体目标的实现。文章将环境感知和适应性商务智能理论引入虚拟企业合作伙伴选择中，提出了基于适应性商务智能的虚拟企业合作伙伴选择模型，设计了模型的基本架构，分析了模型的构成模块，探讨了模型的应用机理。     

THE CHANGING VOLATILITY OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY

During the last decade economic literature explored the presence of and reasons for what became known as “the great moderation” in the US and other G7 countries. “The great moderation” describes the decrease in economic volatility experienced in many of the G7 countries. This paper finds that in South Africa volatility is also not constant (it even finds that there are autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic effects present) and that volatility also decreased, particularly since 1994. Following the literature, the paper explores several reasons for this decrease and finds that smaller shocks, better monetary policy and improvements in the financial sector that place less liquidity constraints on individuals and allow them to manage their debt better are some of the main reasons for the reduction in the volatility of the South African economy. The literature on the G7 also suggests that better inventory management contributed to the lower volatility. However, this seems not to be true for South Africa.