Search

The discourse regarding globalisation and particularly 'global competition' has appeared in a range of socio-economic areas and higher education is no exception. Global competition has been the policy context in which a range of national excellence initiatives have been developed. These have often involved competitive processes with significant funding as a core incentive for universities to participate. Several countries have implemented these to build 'World Class Universities' (WCU) but often this concept is linked to global rankings and a western model of what world class is. The aim of this study is to critically examine the characteristics of China's WCU policies, particularly as a competition discourse. It aims to go beyond Western-centric paradigms to capture a more inclusive and diverse understanding of competitive dynamics across various cultural and regional contexts. The article first draws upon critical globalisation studies, then it reviews 'indigenous' Chinese policy concepts of 'world class-ness' in HE, next it examines the construction of higher education (HE) competition in the Chinese national and institutional contexts, and finally it conducts a thematic review of the main Chinese WCU policies and the strategy and implementation documents of the 'core' WCU institutions with respect to the indigenous concepts. Our study's findings will contribute to a nuanced understanding of competition in HE settings – it examines and challenges the tendency of the competition discourse to reduce distinctions between national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global tourism competition has entered home and family space. Drawing upon ethnographic research in Guatemala, this paper investigates the postcolonial gendered politics that shape (and are shaped by) global tourism competition, homestays, and mothering labour. It shows how Guatemalan women turn to hosting as an economic strategy and, in doing so, become part of a complex power relationship between Spanish schools and their (primarily Western) language tourists (or ‘students’). Spanish schools only work with ‘host-mums’ deemed capable of meeting their students’ needs, desires, and expectations of homestays as affordable, enjoyable, pedagogical experiences of ‘real’ family. To achieve this, Guatemalan women become cosmopolitan, competitive subjects who devise and enact strategies to commodify, transform, and perform their mothering labour and homes/families in ways that appeal to their Western students. Far beyond creating desirable touristic experiences, the everyday competitive mothering of tourists is having widespread consequences at the personal, local, and global levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates that the current rivalry between economic-political power blocs has similarities and differences concerning the period before WW1. That phenomenon is relevant because the last ten years have witnessed a growing rivalry in different orders between East Asia, led by China and Russia, and the West, led by the United States and its allies. The text compares the similarities and differences of these two historical moments in a historical framework, using historical and documentary bibliographic information. The main conclusion is that there is a rivalry for institutionality and future governance, something that was absent in the early nineteenth century, in which liberal theses and territorial imperialism predominated. The constitution of the BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and the newly incorporated countries) constitutes a challenge in the consolidation of a new multipolar governance, a new phenomenon, and therefore, a geopolitical challenge for the construction of a new global order that replaces a single hegemonic power such as the one that occurred at the end of the WWII. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with other printed items (such as journals, novels and textbooks), newspapers were instrumental in connecting different sectors of Chinese society in the early twentieth century, creating what Benedict Anderson calls 'a homogeneous empty time' for the Chinese. In this article, I will examine one commonly used strategy to increase readership – national disaster. As the late Qing government was confronting a series of crises (such as the palace coup d'état of 1898, the Boxer uprising of 1900, the death of Empress Dowager in 1908), newspaper publishers presented these crises as a continuing saga that revealed the doomed fate of their country. To show the effectiveness of this strategy, I focus on Zhengyi tongbao (1902–1908). Edited and published by Deng Shi (1877–1951), the newspaper was a hodgepodge of official documents, news columns, and political commentaries. What linked these different parts of the newspaper together was the urgency of national crisis. As I will show, Deng Shi was effective in using national disaster to attract readers' attention. At one point, he even offered readers substantial discounts if they renewed their subscription ahead of time to avoid missing the new episodes of national disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing a national university has been widely viewed by smaller developing countries as a means of asserting sovereignty and driving the country's economic, social, and cultural development. This has been particularly true in the South Pacific, despite the existence of the regional University of the South Pacific. Building a national university with the limited financial resources of a small developing country presents numerous challenges. This paper, using a critical ethnographic methodology, examines the lessons from the first ten years (2010–20) of Fiji National University from the perspective of an insider researcher. Some challenges are common to new universities created by merging smaller colleges. Others are more specific to developing countries, including the dependence on public funding and political patronage. Some challenges are more distinctively Pasifika, with cultural values of familial loyalty and respect for elders, sometimes in conflict with 'imported' management practices. The spectre of neo-colonialism is ever present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars, particularly in public health, argue that neoliberal capitalist economic forces adversely affect communities by increasing inequalities, ultimately affecting health. Apparently, corporate capitalism affects health and communitarian concerns because governments place corporate profits over the publićs interests. Using unique data collected by the Varieties of Democracy (VDEM) project that capture the degree of access of the poorest segments of society to health services comparable with those available to the richest segments, this study finds that an index of economic freedom robustly reduces inequality of access to health. We argue that these results obtain because greater exposure to global markets increases the premium on the productivity of labour, increasing incentives for political elites to invest in productivity-enhancing public goods. Our results are robust to a number of alternative models and data, and robust to instrumental variables analyses addressing potential endogeneity. Rather than free-market capitalism increasing health-related neglect of society, our data suggest that free-market capitalist conditions promote equitable access to health. This is good news for governments wishing to grow their economies, reform broken health systems for gaining advantages in a competitive global economy, and serve communitarian interests, such as shared good health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China and the US have responded to the challenges of a knowledge-based society, technological advancement, and global competition by implementing educational reforms to impart skills or competencies required of 21st century students. This study compares the rationales, content, and curricula design of both countries' key competencies frameworks and explores the possibility of reciprocal learning. Although their frameworks have certain similarities, significant differences have arisen due to cultural factors. The Chinese framework follows the Confucian tradition, emphasising moral education, political inclinations, transferring general competencies to specific-subject ones, and integrating key competencies in the national curriculum. The US framework follows the pragmatic tradition, emphasising generic skills and economic needs. Some US states have attempted to revise curriculum standards or incorporate 21st century skills by identifying their alignment with Common Core State Standards. Both frameworks have deficiencies and face challenges in implementation, and they can learn from each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalisation has done more to shape the 21st century than virtually any other phenomenon. However, international tax law has seemingly failed to keep pace with rapid technological developments, which has likely led to inequalities between the tax burden of traditional and digital business models. Thus far, there has been no consensus regarding the issue of fair taxation of the digital economy at the international and EU level. As European policymakers have begun to experience noticeable amounts of pressure to act, several EU countries have pushed forward and introduced unilateral measures to ensure they receive a fair share of the tax revenues pie. However, it is unclear whether national digital taxes can overcome the tax challenges stemming from the increasing digitalisation of the economy. Thus, newly proposed and implemented national digital taxes in Europe are thoroughly elaborated in the context of their relationship with double tax treaty law, the perils of double/multiple taxation, their coherence with European law, their global and regional impact on competition and competitiveness, their contribution to tax revenues and the establishment of fair taxation conditions. The analysis concludes with a presentation of pertinent suggestions regarding national and supranational tax policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Government's attempts at national urban policy have been sporadic and inconsistent, under the constraints of constitutional, financial, ideological and political factors. This paper concerns the recent resurgence of national urban policy under the rubric of "smart cities" adopted by the Turnbull Government and carried on by the incumbent Morrison Government. It investigates how this round of smart cities agenda articulates with Australia's political tradition of national urban policy to seek continuity and change, through comparing historical policies, unpacking major smart cities programmes, identifying explanatory factors and critically commenting on its innovation and legacy. Drawing upon these analyses, this paper argues that understanding the smart cities agenda needs to move beyond the political, ideological "to‐and‐fro" pendulum to national urban policy observed in history. Rather, it resonates with a globalised policy norm established upon the city‐based global integration and competition, driven by an imperative of transitioning to a knowledge economy and pursuing innovation capacity. It is too early to judge whether the smart cities agenda will bring changes to Australian cities in the way it wishes, since it involves long‐term infrastructure investment and urban development projects. However, a comprehensive and consistent national urban policy to govern the Australian system of cities and towns has not been established yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have identified the emergence of a global field of academic science. In order to understand the dynamics of this field, this study used latent profile and regression techniques to analyze data gathered for a sample of 114 research universities from around the world. Sociological theory informed the framing and conceptualization of the study. Results demonstrated that leading research universities emphasized different areas of science, that science emphasis was patterned by geographic region, and that region, resource levels, and science emphasis all predicted status in the field. Implications for theory and future research were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro- and small-scale enterprises (MSEs) in many regions provide the only job opportunities for large parts of the population and ensure the survival of numerous families. However, the existence of MSEs is increasingly threatened by an increasing global competition reaching previously local markets. This article gives an overview of general aspects of clustered MSEs in the global South and the effects of global competition. It emphasises the importance of considering the diversity of clusters as well as the socio-cultural context of entrepreneurs in order to understand entrepreneurial behaviour. The empirical qualitative analysis of the actual adaptation behaviour of MSEs in South America's largest textile cluster, Gamarra in Lima, reveals that strong competition forces entrepreneurs to concentrate all resources on maintaining the business, leading to a fatalistic participation in the price war on local markets. It further shows how the absence of public regulation together with socio-cultural barriers prevents entrepreneurial cooperation, and suggests rethinking the laissez-faire strategy of public actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative analysis of the question whether ‘parties still matter’ has largely focused on the dynamics of aggregated expenditure-based dependent variables or protective welfare policies such as unemployment, sickness and family benefits. This article develops a series of pooled time-series cross-section regression specifications predicting changes in disaggregated protective welfare policies alongside productive welfare policies, namely family services, active labour market programmes and public education, across 17 Western democracies (1971-2010). In so doing, it employs the latest Comparative Manifesto Project [Volkens, A., P. Lehmann, N. Merz, S. Regel, and A. Werner. 2014. The Manifesto Data Collection. Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP/MARPOR). Version 2014b. Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). Accessed January 2015. https://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/information/information] and Veto Player [Jahn, D., T. Behm, N. Düpont, and C. Oberst. 2012. Parties, Institutions & Preferences: Veto Player (Annual), Version 2012-02. Accessed January 2015. http://comparativepolitics.uni-greifswald.de/data.html] data to explore the effect of the ideological position of prime ministers’ parties, veto players and their combined effect on these welfare policy areas. The article confirms that Left and Right governments ceased to make any substantive difference for protective welfare policies from the early 1980s onwards. Yet, it also finds that positive Left partisan effects have largely persisted for productive welfare policies. In the era of global competition, Left party ideology has continued to be an important factor in realising a social investment perspective in practice; in terms of the expansion of family services, its effects have been contingent on the veto power Left prime ministers faced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forestry industries cluster plays a key role in ensuring sustainable development and stimulating consumption of renewable resources in various sectors of the world economy. A hypothesis has been put forward and proved for countries that have the largest share of roundwood consumption in relation to its production over the period 2010-2014, according to which a sharp increase in consumption over production is not economically and technologically justified and cannot determine the world trend. The revealed regularities determined the opportunities for the stagnation of the timber industry in the economies of the countries of Lebanon, UAE and Br Virgin Island. In turn, according to the countries of Mauritius, Qatar, Tonga, Uzbekistan, on the contrary, there is a steady increase in consumption of roundwood. In the study of world countries that have the smallest share of consumption in relation to production, a hypothesis has been put forward and proved, according to which the production of roundwood in absolute terms grows at a higher rate than its consumption. In addition, the best indicators of the dynamics of exports of roundwood for the under study period have shown steady growth in the main world countries, except Malaysia. When studying the world experience of state support for the forest sector of the economy, it is necessary to take into account that the main achievements in the forest sectors are provided largely due to the active role of the state, which implies the implementation of the national forest policy. The main priorities should be: consistent decision-making in the field of forest management, taking into account the socio-economic, natural-climatic and ecological features of the territories, as well as the balance of the country's environmental, economic and social interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Soviet system of knowledge production based on cooperation, knowledge sharing, but also intense competition was already an inspiration for innovation policymakers in the U.S. and in Europe back in the 1950 and 1960s. Nowadays, as the global economy is moving towards a new mode of production, the Soviet case may still play an important role to help to frame a better institutional approach to innovation. With the dramatic challenges already brought by the fourth industrial revolution and the tectonic economic and social shifts it is expected to cause around the world, the Soviet case with all its pros and cons is becoming more and more relevant for this debate as it provides necessary empirical data to consider other institutional approaches to innovation distinct from the established property-focused model. In this context, intellectual property and competition law scholars hopefully would better understand the Soviet innovation system through further academic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article represents the research of the existing stage of Ukrainian language and cultural development, aims both to reveal the peculiarities of up-to-date linguistic and cultural dynamics and to provide the analysis of practical experience of the contemporary nations in terms of protection and preservation their cultural identity. The authors evaluate the influence of globalization processes on the development of national language and culture, outline the prospects for development of the Ukrainian national identity in the conditions of global competition of different language and cultural systems and make the conclusion that globalization and competition of different linguistic and cultural traditions provide significant impetus for the renewal and development of the Ukrainian language and culture, the growth of its information resource and expansion of functional sphere of the Ukrainian language. As a result of investigating the current state and peculiarities of Ukraine's linguistic and cultural dynamics, the authors emphasize the fact, that the peculiarities of the modern Ukrainian language and cultural situation are characterized by the spread of the phenomenon of "bilingualism" among a significant part of its citizens and recapitulate that in the conditions of global competition of different linguistic and cultural traditions, Ukrainian round-the-clock multimedia news sites, various analytical, information-thematic, search-abstract and entertaining Internet resources actively promote the representation of national and cultural identity of the country, represent Ukraine as a modern, independent, and authentic nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the nature, purpose and means of influencing the public consciousness of the "Russian world" phenomenon. The origins of the project, the course of its implementation in the intellectual and power circles of Russian society are shown. It is proved that as an instrument of global competition, the "Russian world" project is an alternative to the Western project of cultural development and can be quite effective. The author concludes that under any development of events the perspective of thinking that opens within the paradigm of the "Russian world", taking into account its relevance in modern Russia, consolidating the potential and influence on the perception and interpretation of contemporary and historical events, will remain a weighty factor in shaping Russia's policy in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars have analyzed global higher education (HE) competition, they have largely failed to address how global spaces of equivalence are tied both to coloniality and to competition. Using the OECD’s International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) as a case study and drawing on concepts from coloniality including Fanon’s zone of being/non-being and Mignolo’s geopolitics of knowledge, we reveal how coloniality underpins the desire for global spaces of equivalence through: the desire for opportunity and belonging; and the desire for recognition and pride. We illuminate how the nature of global competition is not simply tied to market-based economic or political rationalities, but also operates under psychosocial dimensions interlinked with belonging in the international community. We argue that AHELO represents the mediation and internalization of a HE competition focused on teaching and learning, which reproduces coloniality by valuing characteristics of the enterprising, globally competitive institution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Technological developments have made change both in our lives and commerce. Electronic commerce in information society has been getting the place of traditional commerce in industry society. The best-known definition of electronic commerce (e-commerce) is refers to all forms of transactions relating to commercial activities, including firms, individuals and public institutions. Electronic commerce has shown very fast increases since 1998 depending on the developments in internet technology. Although this increase has brought advantages to the producers and consumers, a serious problem has also brought up along with it for the revenue authorities in this case. Taxpayers have expanded their tax evasion and tax avoidance possibilities by cross-border transactions at the same time electronic commerce is integrating the world economies. Naturally, taxation of electronic trade is related to all countries and economies all over the world. Therefore, the international characteristic of electronic commerce necessitates cooperation between tax authorities in solving this problem. The aim of this study is to examine the developments in the effects of electronic commerce on taxation, the problems related to this field and the ways of solutions developed in today's world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational reform is sweeping the country. The adoption and the implementation of the Common Core State Standards in almost every state are meant to transform education. It is intended to update the way schools educate, the way students learn, and to ultimately prepare the nation's next generation for the global workplace. This article will describe the Common Core State Standard initiative and the underlying concerns about the quality of education in the United States as well as the opportunities this reform initiative affords speech-language pathologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to describe selected leading indicators of global competitiveness. This will be accomplished by reviewing several selected sources that focus on various metrics. The reported data was determined to be the most recent at the time of a presentation of this material to NFAIS in February 2012. The goal of this paper is to be objective and informational. Each of the selected indicators will be described in a high-level with a brief review of significant results. This paper will illustrate that there is no one 'global leader' across the various categories that are reviewed. The data will show that well established economies, such as the US and EU countries continued to maintain significant levels of funding and achievement, yet these data will also demonstrate how leading positions are being eroded by rapid advances among emerging economies led by China. The Regionally Developing Economies (RDEs) are visibly increasing their positions in various rankings. The data also shows that some of the smaller, yet more established economies, such as Switzerland achieved top positions when a variety of input and output pillars and sub-pillars are utilized within the assessment methodology. Switzerland has long been considered to be a wealthy economy. Finally, the presentation will review, at a high-level the status of STM publishing within an increasingly global market. The paper will summarize recent activities and point to selected RDE markets where local STM market forces are emerging, either in the form of incumbent global publishers who are establishing presence via local partnerships or country-specific publishing operations. In addition, the emerging markets feature notable in-country participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite ongoing debates about their uses and validity, university rankings are a popular means to compare institutions within a country and around the world. Anchoring theory suggests that these rankings may influence assessments of institutional reputation, and this effect may be particularly strong when a new rankings system is introduced. We test this possibility by examining data from the first 3 years of the Times Higher Education Supplement ( THES) world university rankings. Consistent with an anchoring hypothesis, the initial THES rankings influenced peer assessments of reputation in subsequent surveys, but second-year rankings were not related to changes in reputation in the third year. Furthermore, as expected, early peer assessment ratings were not associated with changes in future rankings. These findings provide strong evidence for an anchoring effect on assessments of institutional reputation. We discuss the usefulness of these peer assessments, along with ways in which reputational surveys can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaders of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide are simultaneously concerned with ensuring workplace equity and increasing the national and global stature of their institutions. Websites provide an effective platform from which HEIs project their desired identity and aspirations toward both employment equity and global competitiveness. In this article we focus on South Africa as an illustrative case and analyze content from the websites of University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand, and University of KwaZulu-Natal. We consider the images the institutions project regarding their goals and purposes, specifically the prominence of global competition and employment equity in the institutions' visions, missions, core values, and other website content. Our analysis demonstrates that all three universities project their institutions as aiming toward being more globally competitive and demographically representative. Yet, the balance of their imagery is decidedly upon global competition. We suggest this emphasis is disconcerting due to the message it conveys to potential academic staff members about what the institutions value. The current university environment may not be attractive to the very groups of people who would make the institutions more equitable in terms of academic staff demographics, particularly in an increasingly competitive and market-driven academic workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doing business in Ghana could not have come at a better time. In the name of globalization, the government of President Kufuor has liberalized trade so that foreign construction companies easily compete with Ghana's own construction firms for big-ticket contracts. A major consequence of the bidding policy, however, is that globalization has negatively affected the nation's indigenous construction contractors in competing with large, international, private corporations for public contracts in Ghana. The situation has rendered indigenous entrepreneurs not only virtually helpless but also continually lacking vital resources. This article examines the current predicament of Ghana's indigenous construction businesses in terms of their inability to effectively compete with foreign construction firms. The author proposes meaningful ways in which the government should formulate a much-needed framework for developing, nurturing, and sustaining their operational infrastructure with the view to preparing them to compete effectively with foreign businesses, particularly for lucrative public-construction contracts in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the importance of forming concepts and marketing the concept to the target group within the process of global competition was handled. In the study, the effects of the global competition on the conception of marketing, the concept selling strategies in forming an intellectual market and the barriers in front of the process of concept selling were handled in detail. Within this framework, concept selling media were examined under the titles of forming a trademark, advertisements, epigrams, informing, legends, fashion creation, propaganda and image creation; on the other hand, the barriers in front of the concept selling were examined under the titles of perception and selectivity in perception, behaviour, the intensity of conceptual pressure, manners and behaviour, marketing shortsightedness and the insufficiency of act of concept selling. In conclusion, a conceptual dimension was added to the concept selling through making a literature review on concept selling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The broader outline of this paper reveals how different types of cities compete and transform themselves in a global world. We take a number of typologies from the State of European Cities Report; we then comment on them and compare them to an equal number of counterparts in the United States. The typologies consist of international cities, research cities, satellite cities and de-industrialized cities. Using these typologies, we discuss whether and how different types of European cities converge with or diverge from American cities. We also take up the issue of whether there exists a specific European or American path to urban development. We then go on to explain the process or urban transformation, or more precisely, how cities go about shifting their economic base to accommodate global pressures. The paper concludes with observations about how cities might adopt or combine various typologies or develop altogether new approaches to global competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Competitive planning programmes for global integration have been created in cities throughout developed and developing countries during the past 2 decades. In China, global aspiration planning has been characterised by the establishment of Pudong New Area of Shanghai in 1990, with a group of foreign direct investment (FDI)-oriented themed zones targeting different types of global flows. Pudong very rapidly became a focus of FDI in the city, which extended to China as a whole in the 1990s, and now is further extended to playing a global role. However, spatial planning for the themed zones in Pudong has been limited in its scope to the physical design, land use, and the pattern of transport routes. This limited role of land use planning has been inadequate to coordinate the mutual engagement between global and local factors; however, an improved mechanism for coordinating planning has not yet emerged to replace it. The competitive and entrepreneurial approach of land management in conjunction with the imperatives of global firms has effectively diminished the original plan''s intention that each zone should focus on particular industries, with each of them complementing the others. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Competitive intransitivity, a situation in which species' competitive ranks cannot be listed in a strict hierarchy, promotes species coexistence through "enemy's enemy indirect facilitation." Theory suggests that intransitivity-mediated coexistence is enhanced when competitive interactions occur at local spatial scales, although this hypothesis has not been thoroughly tested. Here, we use a lattice model to investigate the effect of local vs. global competition on intransitivity-mediated coexistence across a range of species richness values and levels of intransitivity. Our simulations show that local competition can enhance intransitivity-mediated coexistence in the short term, yet hinder it in the long term, when compared to global competition. This occurs because local competition slows species disaggregation, allowing weaker competitors to persist longer in the shifting spatial refuges of intransitive networks, enhancing short-term coexistence. Conversely, our simulations show that, in the long term, local competition traps disaggregated species in unfavorable areas of the competitive arena, where they are excluded by superior competitors. As a result, in the long term, global intransitive competition allows a greater number of species to coexist than local intransitive competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with global economic rents (GER), which are a product of the global integration of production and the emergence of new patterns of competition. The theoretical antecedents of the concept are found in the classical economic theory of Marx and Schumpeter. This states that analysis of integrated world production has placed elaboration of the subject on new ground connecting the organization of the firm with knowledge assets and technological changes. However, it will have to go further than this. With the exception of companies in the dynamic economies of Asia, China and to an increasingly greater extent India, the other developing countries have a precarious position in the struggle for ger, this constituting a further limit on their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses motivations for international business expansion and its benefits to support an organization's global market system integration efforts. Combinations of domestic business diversification and international expansion that yield a successful growth strategy are assessed. The research considers an export substitution effect created by the elimination of tariffs and the reduction of non-tariff barriers. The study indicates pitfalls of overexpansion and assesses unfocused development as well as the socio-economic impact of less developed countries inviting foreign direct investment. A geographic survey of the global market for entry and expansion opportunity is presented and the generalized differences are identified between market structures and business cultures within US, Europe and Asia. Mexican and Asian liquidity crises are reviewed to show macro-economic variables that determine long-term viability of expansion strategy. The US domestic automotive market is assessed in terms of competitive pressures from Japanese and Korean automobile manufacturers' successful expansion into the US market and it is qualified with an assessment strategy employed by the entrants quantifying success and expected success using game theory models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore selected tools and processes as well as the underlying theory we use to support business strategic planning and cluster economic development. Key among these are enabling infrastructures and new forms of leadership, which include appreciative inquiry. In particular, we report our experiences in working with micromultinational businesses in the UK and extend the findings reported by Dimitratos, Johnson, Slow, and Young (2003) to suggest four additional success strategies for companies that are 'taking their businesses global'. We conclude with two short case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatio-temporal processing of spike trains by neuronal networks depends on a variety of mechanisms distributed across synapses, dendrites, and somata, In natural systems, the spike trains and the processing mechanisms cohere though their common physical instantiation. This coherence is lost when the natural system is encoded for simulation on a general purpose computer. By contrast, analog VLSI circuits are, like neurons, inherently related by their real-time physics, and so, could provide a useful substrate for exploring neuronlike event-based processing. Here, we describe a hybrid analog-digital VLSI chip comprising a set of integrate-and-fire neurons and short-term dynamical synapses that can be configured into simple network architectures with some properties of neocortical neuronal circuits. We show that, despite considerable fabrication variance in the properties of individual neurons, the chip offers a viable substrate for exploring real-time spike-based processing in networks of neurons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]