Search

Since the early 2000s, Sino-foreign equity joint ventures (JVs) have declined sharply as a predominant strategy for multinational enterprises (MNEs) to enter and operate in China. We study one of the contributory factors, foreign buyout, and its performance implications. By applying incomplete contract theory and an agency perspective, we provide micro evidence that superior post buyout performance is observed in converted wholly-owned subsidiaries (WOSs) with efficiency-seeking operations and subsequent CEO succession. The findings extend our understanding that ownership per se does not guarantee performance improvement. Instead, it is the alignment between ownership and the owner's inputs, and between ownership and the owner's managerial control, that give rise to performance improvement.

We empirically compare bids (i.e. prices) from temporary partnerships (TPs), that outsource part of the contract before the auction, and firms that outsource afterwards. Using a comprehensive dataset on procurement auctions for public works in Valle d’Aosta (Italy), we find that the timing of outsourcing affects the bids and the probability of winning the auction. Specifically, TPs bid closer to the payoff maximizing offer and are more likely to win. Hence, the price paid by the public buyer is lower. These results are supported by a simple theoretical setting showing that, by pre-committing to a TP, suppliers have a lower risk of being “held up” by subcontractors than firms that outsource part of the work after the bidding phase. Our results show the advantage for TPs of freely choosing partners, size and boundaries before the auction, highlighting their potential in fostering the effective participation in public procurement procedures of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

The shipping industry is fairly volatile pertaining to shipment pricing. To handle this volatility, two types of pricing strategies are employed in the shipping sector, contract market pricing and spot pricing. The contract market offers a fixed shipment price for a known cargo task over a set period, with secured booking space in periods of high demand. The spot market has a fluctuating shipment price, where one can benefit from lower prices than contract rate shipment prices in the low season, but face escalating shipment prices and less certainty of being able to secure a booking on a particular vessel in peak season, as space is reserved for contracted customers. However, both the pricing strategies followed have no relationship between current shipment demand and available shipping capacity and shipment prices are quoted based on predefined price lists (hard copy). This paper addresses the research gap of optimal spot shipment price calculation based on current shipment demand and available shipping capacity. To do so, we have developed a model that utilizes historical data to calculate spot pricing for container shipments. The proposed model is capable of calculating shipment spot prices based on shipment demand and capacity. Data from various sources was gathered to generate a shipping dataset for three years (i.e. from 2016 until 2018). Regression and correlation analysis are used to quantify research outcomes. Results have shown that the proposed model significantly increases the correlation between shipment price and shipment demand from 0.33 to 0.88 and available capacity from − 0 . 12 to 0.35 respectively.

Available online 5 February 2020 Flexibility markets are a promising tool to make better use of existing distribution grids. We analyse four pioneering projects implementing flexibility markets: Piclo Flex, Enera, GOPACS, and NODES. Based on a literature review, we develop a six-question framework. We find that all of the considered flexibility markets are operated by a third party. All projects also engage with multiple DSOs to become the standardized platform provider. Differences among the projects are found in the extent to which the flexibility markets are integrated into other existing markets, the use of reservation payments, the use of standardized products, and the way TSO-DSO cooperation is done. The answers to these questions vary for the projects because of different visions, use cases, or project maturity. Our case study analysis of four pioneering projects enriches the taxonomy and shows that practice is moving faster than the conceptual debate around flexibility markets. Published version of EUI RSCAS WP 2019/39 FSR

This paper considers the impact of firm ownership on innovation over the industry life-cycle. By analyzing a sample of 9602 European manufacturing firms, we first confirm established evidence that firms focus on product-oriented innovation during the growth stage of the industry life-cycle, and on process-oriented innovation during maturity. When firm ownership is taken into account, we find that this pattern is strongly reversed by the shifts from growth to maturity, but only for family firms, as these firms are significantly more prone to introduce risky product innovations during maturity. Controls for firm size, financial resources and other firm-specific variables, together with an explicit consideration of managerial ability, help in rejecting the hypothesis that family firms rely on product innovation for the inferior ability to manage process and organizational innovation. In addition, we find that the adoption of risky product innovation during maturity is mainly associated with family ownership, not management. By contrast, family management favors risk-avoiding behavior, except in the case of experienced family CEOs.

By integrating a resource dependence perspective with a complementarity view, this article investigates how online visibility affects the performance of hotels, through user-generated reviews and their presence on Internet portals. Our core argument is that when firms have gained a positive reputation from user-generated reviews, they should reduce their asymmetric dependence on Internet portals. Using a unique panel dataset of 276 small and medium-sized hotels from 2012 to 2014, we have found that good online visibility and the presence on multiple Internet portals are complementary conditions for the profitability of a hotel, and that the impact on profitability, due to the number of Internet portals on which firms are visible, is negative in the case of a poor reputation and leads to diminishing marginal returns in the case of a positive reputation.

Food selling platforms are facing both challenges and opportunities during the COVID-19 outbreak as the enforcement of social distancing protocols has pushed consumers with serious health and safety concerns to shop online. Observing that platforms and their suppliers have adopted blockchain technologies and linked selected information nodes separately to foster consumers' trust, we establish a game-theoretic model to study the operations decisions and blockchain adoption strategies for a food supply chain consisting of one platform and one supplier. We explore the values and impacts of blockchain on the retailing platform, supplier, and consumers, respectively. An all-win situation is achieved when both members of the supply chain adopt blockchain. We further propose that not all prevalent supply chain contracts can achieve supply chain coordination in the presence of blockchain. In extended studies, we examine the incentives of the supply chain members' blockchain implementation with consideration of the fixed cost of such adoption, product infection, and tampered information.

The vision of Industry 4.0 foresees also much lower time delays between activities and feedback control. Among factors which influence delays in supply chains are long distances between activities in a complex global supply chain and the response latency of older workers, in the case that there are no properly developed programs for avoiding this phenomenon. The analysis of a trade-off between these factors is the subject of this article. Mitigating the decreasing functional capacities of the ageing workforce, to keep the old workers’ productivity on the higher level while their functional capacities are decreasing, collaborative robots and smart workstations are advised. The second solution is to move a part of production to foreign countries where the demographic structure is in favour of young workers, and human resources are much cheaper. In the article, we are developing a model for a trade-off between two solutions: to invest in collaborative robots or to develop early retirement schemes and to move the production plants abroad. Therefore, the basic trade-off is between robotisation, keeping short distances between activity cells in a supply chain, and transportation costs which include also additional costs of delays in a system. The model is based on the skeleton of the extended MRP theory of Grubbstrom and Bogataj and evaluated by the NPV and, as a novelty, also by the actuarial present value APV in the criterion function. Extended MRP enables to extend the model of multi-echelon systems which is presented by the same authors in the International Journal of Production Economics, under the title: The ageing workforce challenge: investments in collaborative robots or contribution to pension schemes, from the multi-echelon perspective to global supply chains. The article explains why it is important to link the annuities for repaying the investment in robots to the flow of funds for workers’ salaries when weighing between early retirement and investment in collaborative robots. The model is applied to a real industrial case of the production of pumps and can be easily implemented also in other international supply chains where the differences in the demographic structure, salaries and automatization between countries are substantial and the eligibility of transport costs is questionable.

This paper develops a unified framework to analyze a continuum of hybrid cooperation agreements along two dimensions: their degree of revenue sharing (scope of alliances) and their degree of cost sharing (scope of joint ventures). The analysis focuses on the air transportation industry, distinguishing between interline and interhub markets. As economies of traffic density become stronger, we find that the socially optimal cooperation agreement moves from full alliance to joint venture in interline markets, whereas it moves from joint ventureto merger in interhub markets. These results are driven by the tradeoff between a procompetitive effect of alliances in interline markets and an anticompetitive effect in interhub markets, along with the efficiency gains associated with joint ventures in interhub markets. We also develop an empirical application for intercontinental routes for the period 2010–2016 that identifies a positive impact of deeper degrees of airline cooperation (revenue and cost sharing) on traffic, both in interline and interhub markets. Therefore, the potential anticompetitive effect of deeper alliances in interhub markets is not observed in our sample.

Made available in DSpace on 2020-12-10T17:32:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-07-01 This article identifies the factors that influence the environmental, social and financial performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector in Asia. Asian SMEs play an important role in both economic growth and the achievement of the region's sustainable development goals. For example, SMEs are key to employment creation and income distribution, and crucial to the growth of Asian exports. However, SMEs are also responsible for a large part of the world's consumption of resources, air and water pollution, and waste generation. Therefore, this article identifies and discusses the factors which contribute to Asian manufacturing SMEs' pursuit of sustainable development. An integrative literature review is conducted, and identifies that innovation and entrepreneurial orientation, governmental actions, and lean manufacturing systems are some of the prominent factors which drive Asian SMEs' financial, social and environmental performance. In addition, this article outlines future research avenues which could support Asian SMEs to move towards fully functioning sustainable development performance. Montpellier Business Sch, 2300 Ave Moulins, F-34185 Montpellier 4, France Qatar Univ, Coll Business & Econ, Doha, Qatar Sao Paulo State Univ, Av Eng Luiz Edmund C Coube 14-01, BR-17033360 Bauru, SP, Brazil Sao Paulo State Univ, Av Eng Luiz Edmund C Coube 14-01, BR-17033360 Bauru, SP, Brazil

The business context in developing economies introduces challenges in scaling production that are often distinct from those faced in mature economies. This study focuses on the potential for risk-sharing mechanisms to overcome some of those challenges for agricultural supply chains in Uganda. The study follows a two-stage research approach conducted in collaboration with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which supported adoption of hermetic crop storage products such as silos in the country since 2013. In the first stage, through interviews with six artisanal silo manufacturers we identified three constraints in scaling silo production that were accentuated by the newsvendor dynamics in this market. In the second stage, we considered the potential for risk-sharing contracts to help alleviate some of those constraints and explored behavioral explanations to account for differences. We ran a laboratory experiment using two contracts that our interviews suggest are feasible in this business context: a buyback mechanism that allows manufacturers to share the risks of procuring excess metal sheets and a salvage mechanism that allows them to share the risks of over-producing silos. The results reveal a consistent under-ordering across both contracts. They also show that while buyback participants respond to contract prices as existing theory would predict, salvage participants do not. Our study provides insights regarding the potential, and the limitations, of different risk-sharing mechanisms to increase the supply of products in developing economies. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.

This paper investigates the optimal product distribution strategy for a manufacturer that uses dual-channel supply chains. We assume that two symmetric manufacturers facing price competition distribute products through (1) a retail channel only, (2) a direct channel only, or (3) both retail and direct channels. Our most notable result is that even though the two manufacturers are symmetric, a subgame perfect equilibrium always arises, including an asymmetric distribution policy, where one manufacturer distributes products only through the direct channel, while the other manufacturer distributes through both the direct channel and the retail channel. A practical implication of this result is that a symmetric distribution policy is not necessarily optimal for a manufacturer encountering price competition. In particular, when another competing manufacturer distributes products through its dual channels, a manufacturer should not similarly adopt a dual-channel distribution strategy just to counter the rival's dual-channel strategy. Such a symmetric dual-channel distribution strategy would trigger the most intense inter-brand competition, eroding not only the rival's profit, but also its own profit.

This paper examines the effects of platform most-favored-customer (PMFC) clauses on incentives for platforms to invest in demand-enhancing investments that might involve spillover effects. In a bilateral duopoly model incorporating competition between sellers and between platforms, we show that the industry-wide adoption of PMFC clauses raises the platforms’ investment level and the resulting retail price if the substitution between platforms is large compared to the substitution between sellers. Additionally, we assess the respective effects of PMFC clauses on the demand, profit of sellers, profit of platforms, consumer surplus, and social welfare. The results suggest a possible conflict between platforms and competition authorities.

This paper studies competition between ad-sponsored platforms that strategically determine business models. In addition to basic services including annoying advertisements, each platform decides whether to introduce an ad-free premium service (i.e., a freemium business model). Freemium platforms encounter a trade-off between increasing the number of premium users for the subscription-based revenues and increasing the number of basic users for the ad-sponsored revenues. I characterize how the freemium platforms should segment their users into basic and premium services. Moreover, I show that the equilibrium business model choice depends on the extent of fixed costs for introducing a premium service. When the fixed cost is at an intermediate level, asymmetric equilibria may arise: i.e., only one platform introduces the premium service. Competing platforms may have an incentive to coordinate their choices toward asymmetric market structures; however, these structures can be harmful to both consumers and advertisers.

In an increasingly competitive world driven by fast changes, companies are challenged to pursue sustainable development through innovation. This matter has led to the discussion about how organizations manage to innovate in a way that they meet the demands of sustainability. Recently, researchers have identified the integration of management systems (IMS) as a potential practice to support both innovation and sustainability. This research aims to contribute to this field by exploring the relationship between IMS and sustainable innovation. European and Latin-American countries are included to contribute to the still scarce empirical evidence analyzing developed and less developed countries. Results suggest that IMS provides the managerial support to foster the adoption of cleaner production technologies. The latter is of particular relevance towards the development of sustainable products that deal with the technical, environmental and social impacts of new products. However, the role of IMS towards sustainable product innovation is not significant. Moreover, no significant differences in terms of sustainable innovations are evidenced among candle manufacturers in Europe and Latin-America. Bigger companies are found more innovative in terms of the adoption of cleaner production technologies, but no significant differences are observed in terms of sustainable product innovation. All in all, this is one of the first articles to relate IMS, the adoption of cleaner production technologies and sustainable product innovation studying a sample of companies allocated in countries of diverse economic backgrounds.

This study focuses on the four human-resource-management (HRM) practices that characterize high involvement (HI), the most advanced approach to employee involvement. These practices push power, information, rewards, and knowledge down to the lowest level of an organization. The impact of these practices on a manufacturing firm's mass-customization capability (MCC) is examined, along with the way this impact is influenced by the degree of product customization (DPC) that the firm provides to its customers. Based on survey data from 195 manufacturing plants in three industries and eight countries, the study finds empirical evidence that these practices improve MCC when they are adopted jointly and, at the same time, DPC surpasses a certain threshold value. The same practices, when implemented independent of one another, do not have statistically significant effects on MCC. Furthermore, as DPC drops below the threshold, the effect of this configuration of practices becomes non-significant at conventional p levels and gradually decreases until it turns into a negative effect, which comes closer to statistical significance when the DPC reaches its minimum. This study is the first to examine the effects of HRM practices on MCC by taking full advantage of the contingent configurational perspective that is strongly advocated in the strategic HRM literature. The results of this study extend the debate on the organizational enablers of MCC and, at the same time, add to the well-established discussion on the performance outcomes of HRM practices in general and HI practices in particular.

As industries are becoming increasingly global, researchers and practitioners are compelled to look at supply chains (SCs) from a global perspective. In this respect, the Global Value Chain (GVC) framework is particularly useful in understanding global dynamics because it relates the nature of relationships between firms (governance) to the possibilities for firms to move toward higher value-added activities (upgrading). Whereas the literature to date has explored these issues via qualitative approaches, this paper explores the effect that different forms of governance with suppliers and customers have on economic (product, process, functional), environmental and social upgrading based on an analysis of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) data. The results show that participating to GVCs supports only some forms of upgrading and only under specific governance structures.

Quality-orientated management change and innovation are central strategies for firms. Implementing both quality improvement and innovation poses significant managerial, organisational and technical challenges, and may also involve significant lags before benefits are realised. Here, using data on a large group of Irish manufacturing plants and econometric analysis, we establish the short- and longer-term influence of plantsâ adoption of quality improvement methods (QIMs) on product innovation performance. Our study highlights the short-term disruptive and longer-term beneficial effects of QIM adoption on product innovation performance. In addition, we find evidence of complementarities and learning-by-using effects from QIM adoption. Our results suggest that maximising the returns to innovation and quality improvement requires consideration of the soft and/or hard nature of individual QIMs and the timing and sequencing of their adoption.

The market share of Single Wagonload (SWL) transport in Europe is decreasing over time, dropping from 50% to 27% in the last decade, against a trend of total rail traffic which is almost stable. Such a figure, however, is not descriptive of the European context as a whole because in some countries SWL represents a key feeder of the rail freight industry while in other countries its continuation is at risk. This paper investigates the importance of SWL by clarifying its role in the European freight transport sector and identifies a set of short and long-term measures aimed at re-launching such a service.

In this article we examine the alliance timing trade-off facing both pharmaceutical and biotech firms in a stochastic and competitive environment. Specifically, we introduce a real options game (ROG), where a pharmaceutical company can choose between two competing biotech firms by sequentially offering a licensing deal early or late in the new drug development process. We find that, when the alliance raises the drug market value significantly, the agreement is signed late in the drug development process. This suggests that the postponement effect implied by the use of real options prevails over the biotech firms’ competition effect, which would instead play in favor of an early agreement for pre-emption reasons. When the alliance does not raise the drug market value significantly, the optimal timing depends on the level of royalties retained by the pharmaceutical company. In particular, an early agreement is signed in the presence of a low level of royalties. In this case, indeed, the competition effect becomes predominant because the pharmaceutical company can substantially reduce the upfront payment and thus the potential loss incurred if the biotech partner does not exercise her option to continue the new drug development process. We also show that the alliance timing outcomes of our real options game considerably differ from those obtained when both parties use the net present value (NPV) to assess their payoffs.

The circular economy paradigm is being widely studied as a possible path to a sustainable development, decoupling economic growth from material consumption and environmental impacts. The introduction of new business models, based on use rather than ownership, has been identified as one of the possible enabling actions for the implementation of circular economy strategies. Thus, product-service systems (PSS) can represent a viable way for companies and customers to switch from a linear to a circular scheme, keeping together the advantages of a customer-oriented offer to those of dematerialization. In this work, an example of innovative, circular business model for the large appliances sector is proposed, based on a PSS and a closed-loop supply chain. A context study, supported by a deep literature analysis, is performed to identify the main changes involved in the transition from a traditional to a circular supply chain in the sector, as well as the main impacts on the actors involved, through causal loop diagrams. The study is a first step for the realization of a system dynamics model, for a further research on impact assessment.

This paper investigates the economic effects of a product information service when potential consumers, who are segmented by their taste, exist in gray markets. Specifically, we construct an economic model that considers a multinational firm (MNF) who expands business to a country and chooses whether to provide information service regarding product characteristics. If receiving the information, consumers in a specific segment, whose taste suits the characteristics, have positive utility from consuming the product, while those in other segments have no utility. By contrast, consumers in all segments have positive expected utility before consuming the product without information. With these settings, we demonstrate that there arises the equilibrium that the MNF provides no information service when gray-market trade, i.e., parallel trade, is allowed in the country, leading to lower consumer welfare than when it is prohibited. A primary finding in the equilibrium is that such a situation arises especially when potential consumers are less segmented. In this situation, the regulator in the country should ban the parallel imports so as to enhance consumer welfare. The result is counterintuitive and notable, because one might intuitively infer that gray-market trade is less desirable when customers are more minutely segmented and the product information service is thus more specific and necessary. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper deals with the open innovation mode in the environmental realm and investigates the effects that knowledge sourcing has on the environmental innovations (EIs) of firms. Using the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) 2006–2008, we refer to the firm's probability of both introducing an EI and extending the number of EI-typologies adopted. We estimate the impact of the ‘depth’ and ‘breadth’ of knowledge sourcing. In addition, we test for the moderating role of the firm's absorptive capacity. Knowledge sourcing has a positive impact on both types of EI-performance. However, a broad sourcing strategy reveals a threshold above which the propensity to introduce an EI diminishes. Cognitive constraints in processing knowledge inputs that are too diverse may explain this result. Absorptive capacity generally helps firms to turn broadly sourced external knowledge into EI. However, internal innovation capabilities and knowledge socialization mechanisms seem to diminish the EI impact of knowledge sourced through deep external interactions. The possibility of mismatches between the management of internal and external knowledge, and of problems in distributing the decision-makers’ attention between the two, may explain this result.

At different policy levels, from local to European, the concept of competitiveness is used to stimulate or promote a region. Often it is assumed that regions can compete with each other on aspects such as labour market, education, investments or human capital. This is also true for investments in transport infrastructure. Investments in transport infrastructure are assumed to have a positive impact on the competitiveness of regions. The question is whether this assumption is true and how it can be measured. This article starts discussing the concept of spatial competitiveness and the way it can be measured using indicators. Improving the accessibility of a region by means of investments is often seen as a precondition to improve the competitiveness of a region. We therefore describe both the transport system and the use of accessibility as one of the supporting indicators. Finally, we consider the link between investments in the transport system and competitiveness. We conclude that competitiveness is a vague term that is hard to operationalise and to measure. It is often used as a marketing concept for regions. Comparison of regions is the goal of using the concept. In that sense, attention must be paid to use the right indicators. Accessibility is one of these indicators. Accessibility can be linked to improvements in transport infrastructure. There is evidence that transport infrastructure investments improve accessibility of regions and cities, but how this affects competitiveness remains unclear. Attempts have been made to quantify the wider economic impacts, which also needs to be included when considering competitiveness. Research into indicators that support competitiveness is therefore recommended.

Document exchange represents a key part of the trade activities of each company. Technological changes provide various opportunities to companies to improve their efficiency. One of the useful and cost-effective technological innovation is electronic data interchange (EDI). Electronic invoicing represents one of the most important and current part of EDI. The aim of this work is to characterize the electronic invoicing and the level of its implementation in the Czech Republic. Using data from questionnaire filled by companies we will evaluate main motives and gains of its implementation. This study gives a general overview of development of electronic invoicing and among other it is one of the first steps in the mapping and in the understanding of this current trend. Results show that through demonstrable savings it is still a marginal issue with large space for further expansion. This phenomenon is mainly associated with retail and automotive industry.

Shorter product and market life cycles with reduced forecast accuracy and frequent new product launches demonstrate the necessity of appropriate measures to increase the market adaptability of manufacturing enterprises. Depending on the extent of changing market demands the product and production process innovation is a necessity for market adaptability. In order to realize a product and production process innovation, specific product and production process technologies are needed. This article analyzes and defines four most promising technological success factors to increase the market adaptability within a multi-variant serial production. In order to analyze and define the technological success factors for adaptability, the model “Patterns of Industrial Innovation” by William J. Abernathy and James M. Utterback is further developed. The aim is to achieve a more efficient and effective multi-variant serial production. Therefore, the developed model illustrates how to response to the increasingly dynamic and partially unpredictable market situation in a competitive way. It can be demonstrated that enterprises can increase their adaptability within a multi-variant serial production through simultaneously pursuing the four technological success factors. Finally, it is shown a mathematical description of these identified four technological success factors. This enables manufacturing enterprises to quantify and assess their actual condition as well as the definition of targets to increase their adaptability within a multi-variant serial production.

Aspiring countries all over the world gain market share in manufacturing and rapidly close the productivity and quality gap that has until now protected some parts of the industry in Europe and the United States from dislocation. However, causal production planning and manufacturing, the basis for productivity and quality, is challenged by the ever-greater need for flexibility and customized products in an uncertain business environment. The result is an increasing manufacturing complexity driven by the high number of product variations. Production managers are thus faced with a high degree of uncertainty under which they have to make their decisions. In many ways, manufacturing managers face similar challenges as entrepreneurs do: they have to operate in an uncertain environment, cannot rely on forecasts and have to involve different stakeholders inside and outside the company in order to be successful. This article uses a case-study-based approach to assess how production managers can apply decision-making principals of successful entrepreneurs. “Effectuation” instead of causal decision-making can be applied to handle the uncertainty of mass customization, to seek the right partners in alliances and to advance towards virtual production. In order to deal with uncertainty in manufacturing, managers have to allow a more entrepreneurial handling of situations. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to connect effectual decision-making with the manufacturing context. The findings help managers to use their resources more efficiently and contribute to bridge the gap between production research and entrepreneurship.

Early diagnosis of potential corporate failure is very important due to the uncertainty of the current business environment and global competition. The main purpose of this paper is to make comparison of the prediction abilities among different techniques to become the best prediction model, which will classify the agricultural enterprises to prosperous and unprosperous. This paper examines three classification techniques, namely discriminant analysis, logistic regression and decision trees. It is implemented by using financial data for Slovak enterprises from the agriculture sector. The selection of appropriate economic and financial ratios is based on the relevant literature and refers to the key ratios of bankruptcy models specified for agriculture enterprises. The article also offers several potential areas for the further analysis.