131 research outputs found
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Stock Returns and Geographic Innovation Index
Get PDFVigdis Boasson
Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
[email protected]
And
Emil Boasson
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48858
[email protected]
And
Alan MacPherson
University at Buffalo
State University of New York
Buffalo, NY 14260
[email protected]
Decreasing Airline Delay Propagation by Re-allocating Scheduled Slack
Get PDFPassenger airline delays have received increasing attention over the past several years as airspace congestion, severe weather, mechanical problems, and other sources cause substantial disruptions to a planned flight schedule. Adding to this challenge is the fact that each flight delay can propagate to disrupt subsequent downstream flights that await the delayed flights' aircraft and crew. This potential for delays to propagate is exacerbated by a fundamental conflict: slack in the planned schedule is often viewed as undesirable, as it implies missed opportunities to utilize costly perishable resources, whereas slack is critical in operations as a means for absorbing disruption. In this paper, we show how delay propagation can be reduced by redistributing existing slack in the planning process, making minor modifications to the flight schedule while leaving the original fleeting and crew scheduling decisions unchanged. We present computational results based on data from a major U.S. carrier, showing that significant improvements in operational performance can be achieved without increasing planned costs
Convergence, Divergence, or Fragmentation: How are Digitalization, Service Competition, and Corporate Consolidation Reshaping Employment Systems in US Telecommunications?
Get PDFThis paper considers three rival employment system hypotheses, each suggesting a different level of institutional cohesion
and operation: the competitive convergence hypothesis, the institutional divergence hypothesis and the fragmentation
hypothesis. The four major telecommunications local networks and network services, fixed wire line, wireless, cable
television, and the Internet are undergoing significant transformations propelled by network digitalization, service
competition, and corporate consolidations. This research examines how these forces are reshaping technician employment
systems across these formerly specialized telecommunications networks and services. The principal finding is that even with
rising inter-network competition and common digital technologies, each network employment system persists, consistent
with the institutional divergence hypothesis. The three facilities-based networks: wireless, cable television distribution, and
wire line, maintain distinctive employment systems rooted in their respective institutional histories, while the Internet
Service Providers exhibit fragmentation reflected in their meteoric rise and current business difficulties
German Automotive Multinationals in Central Europe: Enterprise Coalitions for Production
Get PDFUnderstanding patterns of internationalization strategies and firm governance of multinational companies (MNCs) is a crucial task for those who want to understand the forces and counter-forces of increased international competition. For a long time scholars studying MNCs have operated with simplistic dichotomies that characterised firm strategies of internationalization: market access vs. cost reduction or home country vs. host country traditions. However, such dichotomous theorisation of internationalization strategies and upgrading outcomes is not very useful. Using the case study of the internationalization of Volkswagen Group to Central Europe this paper presents the internationalization and upgrading strategy of this automotive MNC as a multifaceted and dynamic process. Managerial and labour agency are conceptualized as being at the core of the firm governance. The paper argues that the industrial upgrading taking place since the late 1990s- early 2000s has been achieved due to coordination between local labour representatives and local management. Although local unions did not drive the change, their role has however been crucial for upgrading. It is the intensified exchange between labour and management since the late 1990s that contributed to the success of industrial upgrading. This is why we refer to the upgrading process as ‘multifaceted’: it is not managerial agency alone but the cooperation of several stakeholders that allowed for a successful upgrading. ‘Dynamic’ refers to the open-ended process of upgrading. It has been a trial-and-error rather than a linear process in which different enterprise coalitions have been competing for dominance in firm governance. In Central Europe, the two central pillars of these enterprise coalitions or production have been wage moderation and high functional flexibility. These were traded by unions for company expansion and most importantly, product and production upgrading
A Framework for Industry Export Competitiveness: Evidence from the Alcoholic Beverages Industry
No full textParticipation in international trade is a key indicator of an industry’s competitiveness. This study presents a framework for measuring the export competitiveness of an industry across countries that takes into account (a) industry specialization, measured by the revealed comparative advantage, (b) industry export growth rate, and (c) relative industry size. We apply the framework to the alcoholic beverages industry using data from the top 30 exporters of alcoholic beverages over a five year period (2001-2005). Our results indicate that the alcohol beverage export market is dynamic and changing, and that export competitiveness varies by country according to the sub-sector of the industry. We discuss the application of the framework across industries and countries
The Diffusion of Complex Market Technologies: Multifaceted Dynamics for Alternative Fuel Vehicles
Get PDFThis paper develops initial steps towards a framework for understanding factors that condition success and failure of complex market technologies. Dynamics of such technologies are conditioned by coevolutionary processes including the development of the installed base, consumer behavior, technologies, complementarities and interlinked supply chains. This paper analyzes diffusion patterns, including failures and successes, of alternative transportation fuel (ATF) and vehicle introductions, natural gas in New Zealand and Argentina, and ethanol in Brazil. I analyze the diffusion patterns of retrospective AFV introductions, failures and successes, through a behavioral dynamic simulation model. I characterize technology diffusion as a process of market formation which requires overcoming a period of fragility. During such a period at least one of the mechanisms conditioning its diffusion works against further spreading. Aggressive, simple strategies to overcome thresholds tend to fail. However, high potential strategies involve policy portfolios that are sustained, synchronized across multiple types of decision makers, and dynamic. Further, the efforts and their duration required to overcome this stage are strongly influenced by institutional and historical contexts. More broadly, the findings provide the groundwork for a framework to analyze processes of market formation for complex technologies. Such a framework involves capturing the fundamental mechanisms cutting across inter-organizational fields, but also includes important system-physiological aspects. Within this framework the traditional S-shaped diffusion curve is a special case with ex-ante usefulness confined to conditions of low market complexity and favorable institutional conditions. We discuss implications for policy and strategy
Strategic Adaptation to Deregulation in the Indian Auto Components Industry
Get PDFWe explore the strategic adaptation by domestic firms subsequent to economic liberalization and industry deregulation in an emerging economy. We study the Indian auto components industry during a ten-year period (1992-2002), using the Prowess database complemented by in-depth interviews with senior industry executives. Firms in our sample accounted for over 70 percent of industry sales during the period. Results of our analysis of indicate that technology licensing by domestic firms was significantly and positively related to their performance during the six-year period (1992-1997) immediately after industry deregulation. During the subsequent five-year period (1998-2002) domestic firms’ ability to create strong relational ties with downstream automakers was more significantly and positively related to performance. A potential implication of our study is that domestic firms need to adapt their strategic behavior by forging successive “fits” with the evolving policy and market environments
From Commodity Chains to Value Chains: Interdisciplinary Theory Building in an Age of Globalization
Get PDFThis chapter situates, elaborates, and further explains the theory of global value chain (GVC) governance developed by
Gereffi, Humphrey and Sturgeon (2005). The theory of GVC governance at the center of the paper is part of a long-term
effort to generalize from accumulated comparative observational research on a range of global industries. First, I discuss the
motivations for supplementing the “buyer-driven” and “producer-driven” modes of global commodity chain governance
developed by Gary Gereffi in the 1990s with an industry-neutral, non-empirical framework. Second, I briefly present the
features of the GVC governance framework as they appear in the 2005 article. Third, I discuss its interdisciplinary
theoretical underpinnings of the framework in more detail than was possible in the original article. Fourth, I discuss the
problem of variation in GVC governance. Fifth, I situate the GVC governance framework in a larger field of GVC-related
theory, including but not limited to power and institutions
The Temporary Staffing Industry in Protected Employment Economies: Germany, Japan and the Netherlands
Get PDFThe paper addresses how the temporary staffing industry secures social security and a degree of employment stability in three non-liberal market economies with a well developed temp work sector and several decades of industry regulation. Until the 1980s unions in Germany, Japan and the Netherlands effectively opposed the deregulation of the staffing industry. Restrictions placed on the temporary staffing industry institutionalized an “employment-type” alternative to the US-style form of “registered” and “on-call” temp staffing. In the face of high unemployment in the 1990s unions participated in de-regulatory drives aimed at expanding the role of the industry in troubled national labor markets. In most cases, de-regulation dismantled key dimensions of the “employment type” of staffing, and unions shifted their efforts to securing equal treatment of temporary staff. To date, legislation has fallen short of mandating equal treatment, and in the best cases (Germany and the Netherlands) collective bargaining has taken on the role of securing equal wages for temporary staff. Japan, Germany and the Netherlands represent three different degrees of industry de-regulation, with the best case of equal treatment of temps in the Netherlands, and the deepest segmentation of temporary and regular workers in Japan. In comparison to Germany and Japan, Dutch unions early on engaged in regulating temporary staffing services. The early experience of regulating rather than rejecting contingent labor and the density of neo-corporatist institutions for social bargaining in the Netherlands means that Dutch unions have developed stronger capacities for regulating contingent employment despite the weak organization of contingent workers. Unions in Japan and Germany have only recently developed capacities for representing contingent labour, but the significant weakening of social bargaining in both countries is associated with growing labor market segmentation between temporary and regular employees
R&D, Value Chain Location and Firm Performance in the Global Electronics Industry
Get PDFIn today’s global electronics industry, innovation is carried out by various value chain participants, including brand-name manufacturers (sometimes called lead firms), contract manufacturers, and component suppliers, but there is little understanding of who benefits most from innovation in such networks. We hypothesize that lead firms capture more value from innovation (R&D), compared to contract manufacturers and component suppliers, because they are positioned close to customers in the global value chain and build capabilities complementary to R&D by focusing on product design, brand, and sales and marketing. To examine the hypothesis, we conduct an empirical study examining the relationship of R&D spending and location in the value chain to firm performance in the global electronics industry using the Electronic Business 300 data set for 2000-2005 and conduct stepwise regression analysis of performance measures with R&D spending, a “lead firm” dummy variable, an interaction term for R&D and the lead firm dummy variable, and industry and region control variables. Our analysis of secondary data is complemented by extensive field research. Our results show that firms spending more on R&D have higher gross profits, but do not have higher ROE and ROA. There is a strong positive relationship between lead firms and performance as measured by gross profit, ROE and ROA, but the relationship between lead firms and gross profit becomes insignificant when the interaction term of R&D and lead firm is included in the analysis. Finally, lead firm status has a positive interaction effect on the relationship between R&D and gross profit. These findings suggest that the relationship of R&D to performance is mixed, but that lead firms can capture higher value (gross profit) from R&D than contract manufacturers and component suppliers