1,721,893 research outputs found
Maritime economics / Martin Stopford.
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (pages 541-547) and index.xxx, 562 pages
The customer-focused multinational : revisiting the Stopford & Wells model in an era of global customers
No full textThere is a well-established line of thinking on strategy and structure in the MNE, beginning with John Stopford's doctoral thesis work (Stopford and Wells, 1972) and moving through the work of Egelhoff (1982), Daniels Pitts and Tretter (1984) and others to Ghoshal and Nohria (1993). However, since the early 1990s this line of research has almost dried up. There continue to be occasional studies of strategy and structure in the MNE (e.g. Wolf and Egelhoff, 2001), but for the most part MNE research has moved on to other issues, such as the changing roles of foreign subsidiaries, knowledge flows in the MNE, and studies of the evolution of the MNE.\ud
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This paper argues that we need to revisit issues of strategy and structure in the MNE, but rather than focusing on the classic contingency factors such as number and diversity of countries, we need to start looking more broadly at other dimensions around which MNEs are now structuring their activities. The main structural dimensions of the 1970s and 1980s were countries, business units, and functions. Today we can identify a number of other dimensions that appear to be equally valid. One is the global account structure for customers who expect to be supplied in a coordinated and consistent way across multiple countries and business lines. A second is the industry sector structure, commonly seen in professional services firms, for servicing a set of customers in a focused and knowledgeable way. And a third is the solutions-based structure in which the customer-facing unit pulls together the offerings of various business units and third parties to provide greater value-added for the customer.\ud
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We will discuss each of these types of structure in detail, looking at the reasons why it has emerged, how it works, and its costs and benefits. We will also address the broader question of why the emphasis in MNE structures has shifted over the last decade towards these customer-focused designs. The primary reason, we argue, is that the opportunities for growth and increased profitability are shifting downstream, towards the provision of value-added services and solutions for customers. Many large MNEs have undertaken this shift in emphasis, including GE, ABB, Ford and Unilever, and while some have failed, others have made the transition very effectively and have been rewarded with superior margins.\ud
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This broad shift in emphasis has two important consequences, both of which will be discussed in some detail. The first is the risk of creating an organization structure that becomes so complex it is unworkable. Often these new dimensions of structure - global accounts, industry sectors - are placed on top of the existing organization structure, resulting in a four- or five-dimensional matrix. This creates complexity, blurring of roles, and administrative overload. As a result, many MNEs are experimenting with ways of simplifying their structures - they are looking for ways of reducing their portfolio of businesses, outsourcing major activities, and making use of market-like mechanisms for structuring internal relationships. \ud
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The second consequence is the potential decline in the importance of geography as a design variable. Many MNEs almost completely disregard the traditional country unit of operation (particularly in the developed world), as other structural dimensions become more important. Our belief is that there are major risks in going this route, and we will examine some of the approaches MNEs are using to counteract this tendency. \ud
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This paper is in four parts. First, we undertake a brief review of the literature on strategy and structure in the MNE. Next we look at the various factors that are driving MNEs to shift their emphasis towards customer-focused structures, and we identify some of the common themes that are emerging. Third, we put forward an organising framework to categorise and explain the different approaches MNEs are adopting. We will present a number of case studies in this section to illustrate how the emerging structures work in practice. Finally, we will revisit some of the broader themes and offer some concluding comments
Hospitals Act of 1923 as amended by the Hospitals Act Amendments Act of 1928 : analysis and examination of financial scheme of Act, and of alternative taxation proposals advanced / by James Stopford, Home Secretary.
No full textCover title.; Electronic reproduction. Canberra, A.C.T. : National Library of Australia, 2012
Self field AC losses in Ag-sheathed PbBi2223 tapes
No full textIn many engineering applications of high temperature superconductors the AC losses of the superconductor is an important design parameter. In general there are two cases of AC losses, those produced when the superconductor carries an AC transport current (self-field losses) and those produced when it is placed in an external AC field (external field losses). The work presented here is focused on the characterization of the self-field losses in Ag sheathed PbBi2223 tapes. The self-field losses of the tape can be devided into different regimes. At currents below the critical current of the tape the losses are dominated by the hysteresis losses of the tape. The cross-section of the superconducting core in a tape is best represented as either a "thin" rectangle or ellipse and the hysteresis losses can be calculated by solving the critical state for these two types of geometry. A standard method of measuring the self-field losses is to attach voltage contacts to the sample and measure the loss component of the surface electric field. However for the extreme geometry of the tape this loss electric field will vary according to the configuration of the voltage loop with a difference of up to 300% possible according to whether the loop is closed on top of or on the side of the tape. Detailed modelling and experiments have shown that an accurate measurement of the losses (within 5%) can be made provided that a suitable measurement protocol is followed. This protocol requires that the voltage loop used for measurement of the loss electric field is closed in the same plane as the tape at a distance for three times the tape half-width. In order to provide validation of the electric measurement a novel thermometric measurement system was constructed. With this method the losses within the tape are determined by the measurement of the temperature profile along an adiabatic tape with both ends at a fixed temperature. Comparative measurements between the electrical and thermometric systems showed a good correspondence for a large range of losses. Studies using the two systems also revealed that some of the tapes measured have a considerable inhomogeneity in the critical current along the length of the tape. Long lengths of the tape capable of carrying a high critical current are separated by shorter regions only capable of carrying a much reduced current. It is likely that the long regions of high current represent the intrinsic critical current of the tape with the reduced current in the shorter regions due to mechanical defects. Although the DC characteristics are dominated by the critical current in the short bad regions the AC losses are dominated by the critical current of the longer good regions making the AC measurements more indicative of the intrinsic critical current of the tape.</p
Feminism, nationalism, separatism? The case of Alice Stopford Green
Get PDFAlice Stopford Green, widow of proto-social and Teutonic nationalist historian J.R. Green, who went on to become an Irish nationalist historian and campaigner, complicates our view of fin-de-siècle women writers. Surprisingly for an amateur historian in an age of professionalization, she took a consciously separatist position, privileging the particular over the general, and defining her writing as both female and Irish.
This article focuses on Stopford Green's 1915 epilogue to her husband's Short History of the English People (1874), and her startlingly anguished periodical article of 1897 from Nineteenth Century, to demonstrate a separatism both bold and self-aware.‘Woman's Place in the World of Letters’ (1897) prefigures Cixous in its call for an écriture feminine. It views women as utterly alien to the established order of this world. Stopford Green at once acquiesces with female essentialisation – ‘woman’ comes in the singular – and undermines it by insisting that woman's true nature is almost never seen. In the ‘Epilogue’ (1915), which updates her husband's narrative to her war-torn present, Stopford Green voices jingoistic rhetoric, but employs unobtrusive asides to distance herself from these calls to imperialism. Through such surreptitious means, she uses her late-husband's popular textbook as the conduit of subversive ideas, both voicing and subverting his English nationalism
Letters to the Editor. Reduced numbers and proapoptotic features of mucosal-associated invariant T Cells as a characteristic finding in patients with inflammatory bowel disease
No full textReason, Morality, and Skill
Get PDFSome economists argue that modern industrial societies must respond to ecological challenges by learning to live with diminishing economic growth. Yet it also seems that low growth societies are doomed to struggle with problems of social instability caused by economic recession, unemployment and a decline in social entitlements. In “Reason, Morality and Skill” John Stopford draws on Ancient Greek economic thought, including Aristotle’s views on the natural limitation of wealth, to discuss the problem of human flourishing in ecologically challenged societies. Economic capability theorists, influenced by the work of Sen and Nussbaum, have recently argued that the transition from a growth driven economy focused on consumption to a stable low growth economy requires us to redefine prosperity as capability development “within limits”. Stopford argues that to understand prosperity in this way we need to reexamine the role of skill in the development of capabilities. The marginalization of skill has become a systematic feature of modern industrial and consumer societies. Yet certain kinds of skill, exemplified in the work of the autonomously productive craftsman, are necessary to the development of the bounded capabilities that low growth societies need to foster
Letter from Thomas Francis Bayard to Alice Stopford Green
No full textThis is a letter from Thomas Francis Bayard, Senior, to Alice Stopford Green, the wife of English historian and writer John Richard Green. Bayard thanks Mrs. Green for a volume of the illustrated edition of A Short History of the English People. He also asks Mrs. Green if he may keep her husband's manuscripts that she sent him
Letter from Thomas Francis Bayard to Alice Stopford Green
No full textThis is a letter from Thomas Francis Bayard, Senior, to Alice Stopford Green, the wife of English historian and writer John Richard Green. Bayard thanks Mrs. Green for a volume of the illustrated edition of A Short History of the English People. He also asks Mrs. Green if he may keep her husband's manuscripts that she sent him
Life, letters, lectures, and addresses of Fredk. W. Robertson, M.A. : incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, 1847-1853 : complete in one volume.
No full textLife and letters of F.W. Robertson edited by Stopford A. Brooke.Mode of access: Internet
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